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Churlish   Listen
adjective
Churlish  adj.  
1.
Like a churl; rude; cross-grained; ungracious; surly; illiberal; niggardly. "Churlish benefits." "Half mankind maintain a churlish strife."
2.
Wanting pliancy; unmanageable; unyielding; not easily wrought; as, a churlish soil; the churlish and intractable nature of some minerals.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Churlish" Quotes from Famous Books



... thing to do, Mary," said Angus, finally, "is to believe his own written word,—that he will be back with us before Sunday. I don't think he means to leave you altogether in such an abrupt way,—that would be churlish and ungrateful—and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... Jack was as serious and thoughtful as his companion. He had a high sense of honor, a hatred of anything underhanded, and his conscience pricked him a little. However, it was not his fault, he told himself. Stephen Foster had no business to be churlish and ungrateful, and treat his daughter as though she were a school miss still in her teens. And what wrong could there be about the day's outing together, if no harm was intended? It would all come right ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... has become better known as Plymouth Bay where the Pilgrims landed fifteen years later—there instead of Port Royal, where even Lescarbot's "Ordre de Bon- Temps" could not overcome the evil reports in France concerning a "churlish wilderness"! Or if Champlain, instead of seeking later the Rock of Quebec—whose rugged charms he could not forget even in the presence of the site of Boston or in the streets of Paris—had laid the foundations of his faith and his courage ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... advantage over the spendthrift in the legend, that, if he was in similar distress, he could not impute it to his own imprudence. His misery had been bequeathed to him by his father, and, joined to his high blood, and to a title which the courteous might give or the churlish withhold at their pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had derived from his ancestry. Perhaps this melancholy yet consolatory reflection crossed the mind of the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing of comfort. Favourable to calm reflection, as well as to the Muses, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... of Love—but thy lips, say they, burnt with another name! Bethink thee, faint heart, there is not a man in all this city but would count death a small price to pay for my favours; and I ask of thee one little service, and thou shalt name thine own reward. Surely 'tis churlish to gainsay!" ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All the evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for she is ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... his views of life alter with tantalizing but pleasant suddenness. Just now I am speaking only of content and exhilaration; but I may soon see another side of the picture. The afternoon glides by like the morning; no churlish houses and chimney-pots hide the sun, and we see him describe his magnificent curve, while, with mysterious potency, he influences the wind. Dull! Why, on shore we should gaze out on the same streets or fields or trees; but here our residence is driven along like a flying cloud, and we gain a fresh ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: 'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, And never its gates might opened be, Save to lord or lady of high degree; Summer besieged it on every side, But the churlish stone her assaults defied; She could not scale the chilly wall, Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall Stretched left and right, Over the hills and out of sight; Green and broad was every tent, And out of each a murmur went Till the breeze ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... has not anything to show less fair: Patient were he of soul who could pass by A twenty minutes' wait amidst the cry Of churlish clowns who worn cord jackets wear, Without one single, solitary swear. The low, unmeaning grunt, the needless lie, The prompt "next platform" (which is all my eye), The choky waiting-room, the smoky air; Refreshment-bars where nothing nice they keep, Whose sandwich chokes, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... perceiving your delusion, I gave warning, and protested, and opposed the abandonment of Thermopylae and the Phocians—that I, being a water-drinker, [Footnote: It was Philocrates who said this. There were many jokes against Demosthenes as a water-drinker.] was naturally a churlish and morose fellow, that Philip, if he passed the straits, would do just as you desired, fortify Thespiae and Plataea, humble the Thebans, cut through the Chersonese [Footnote: This peninsula being exposed to incursions from Thrace, a plan was conceived of cutting through the ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... griping &c. v.; illiberal, ungenerous, churlish, hidebound, sordid, mercenary, venal, covetous, usurious, avaricious, greedy, extortionate, rapacious. Adv. with a sparing hand. Phr. desunt inopioe multa avaritiae omnia [Latin][Syrus]; "hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill" [Goldsmith]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and conned well in his mind the directions, one and all, given to him by the Darwaysh. Then, with firm courage and fast resolve, he set out afoot to reach the hill-top. But hardly had he begun to climb before he heard a voice beside him threatening him in churlish tongue and crying, "O youth of ill-omen, stand still that I may trounce thee for this thine insolence." Hearing these insulting words of the Invisible Speaker, Prince Parwez felt his blood boil over; he could not refrain his rage and in his passion he clean forgot the words of wisdom ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... the keys of their churlish doors, and others, from time to time, "sport oak."—Harv. Mag., ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... they took us for visitors from the spirit world. As a rule the Tchuktchi costume is becoming, but these people wore shapeless rags, matted with dirt, and their appearance suggested years of inactivity and bodily neglect. I noticed, however with satisfaction that their churlish greeting was not unmingled with fear, although they obstinately refused the food and shelter begged for by means of signs, pointing, at the same time, to a black banner flapping mournfully over the nearest hut. This I knew (from my experiences at Oumwaidjik in 1896) ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... waues did gape) He sought his chastest Hero, beating from him The waues, which murmuring stroue for to com nere him: And at the other, matchlesse Hero stood Viewing Leander tossed by the flood, And how the churlish billowes beat that head On which herselfe was so enamoured; Praying to Neptune, not to be so cruell, But to deliuer vp her dearest iewell: To figure to the world whose shining eies She set two diamonds of highest prise. Vpon her head she ware a vaile of lawne, Eclipsing halfe her ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... love raised my fingers to his lips. "Forgive me, sweetheart, for being so churlish—but you cannot know the fears that fill me when I see that man's dark face gazing into yours, and realize that we are ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... this. He had meant to utter no vindictive word, and yet he knew that every sentence he uttered contained a threat, a threat which at that time seemed to him to have no meaning. He felt ashamed of himself, too, and it seemed to him on reflection that he had been churlish even almost to childishness. And yet the words came to him in spite of himself, and he had flung them out eagerly, almost triumphantly. Even Mr. Bolitho felt a shiver pass through his body as Paul spoke. His speech seemed to contain ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... Sidi ibn Thalabi, "there is, I am persuaded, no one so churlish as to refuse to do aught that he may be requested to do, with the object of amusing your guests at this hospitable and ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... attendance up to date, just before I asked him to sign the bulletin. I also presented the nurse with a brooch of gold filagree work, which I had brought home with me from Portugal, intending to give it to my mother. It would have been churlish of them, afterward, to refuse ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... prospect of a contest, his labours as a candidate were not slight. The constituency was numerous, and every member of it expected to be called upon. To each Mr. Ferrars had to expound his political views, and to receive from each a cordial assurance of a churlish criticism. All this he did and endured, accompanied by about fifty of the principal inhabitants, members of his committee, who insisted on never leaving his side, and prompting him at every new door which he entered with contradictory reports of the political ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... pride and independence as the proudest earl at Westminster; but carry not independence too far. Remember that if you yourself had received a great service you would be hurt if the donor refused to receive your thanks; and it would be churlish indeed were you to put on sullen looks, or to refuse to accept any present which the lady whose life you have saved may make you. It is strange, indeed, that it should be Dame Vernon, whose husband, Sir Jasper Vernon, received the fiefs of ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... Constable hath sent us back his sword And doth renounce our service. Now, by heaven! He thus hath rid us of a churlish man, Who insolently sought to lord it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... he had welcomed his kin, each one to his house, he would say to such as thanked him, if it were a child, very soberly: "Be a good child." But for elder folks he had no more than "It is well," or an almost churlish: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... goods at the highest profit. None of the lasting works of the world were written so. Nevertheless, if the public voluntarily choose to lavish what they can of their best on the author who imparts to them inspired thoughts and noble teachings, then that author must not be churlish, or slow to accept the gratitude implied. I think the most appropriate maxim for a poet to address to his readers is, 'Freely ye have received, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... we will procure them a gentle fall. After having rocked ourselves in the large and hospitable cradle of the Free Press, where the peer and the commoner, the priest and the alderman, the friar and the swaddler,[2] can stretch themselves at full length, provided they be not too churlish, let us laugh at those who breed useless quarrels, and set to the world the bright example of toleration and benevolence. A peaceable life and happy death to all Adam's children! May the ministers of religion of every denomination, whether they pray at the head ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... all likely that, as Mr. Scott suggests, Eliezer waited simply to test Rebekah's amiability. The test which he had asked for was sufficiently answered by her offering the service in the first place, and doubtless it would have been a churlish and ungracious; breach of courtesy to have refused the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... latter remind the classical reader of the force and swelling impetuosity of the moral declamations in Juvenal, while the former have all the keenness and caustic severity of the old Stoic philosophers. The soul of Diogenes appears to have been seated on the lips of Apemantus. The churlish profession of misanthropy in the cynic is contrasted with the profound feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldierlike and determined resentment of Alcibiades against his countrymen, who have banished him, though this forms only ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... stupid and out of sorts last night, Trixy," she had said. "If I seemed churlish, I ask your pardon, dear, with all my heart I was surprised—I don't mind owning that—and perhaps a little, just a little, envious. But all that is over now, and I do wish you joy and happiness from the bottom of ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... "A churlish host I ween am I To thee, who, day by day, Thus comest to cheer my solitude With converse frank and gay, Or tempt me with thy dogs to course ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... up here. I dismissed all the servants save the two you have seen, and have for years refused to mix with my fellows. I grew churlish and bitter. I talked strangely, until stories were circulated about me, wild and foolish, of course, but still making me become more a misanthrope than ever. Why I gave you admittance yesterday I do not know, but ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... staunch, in the old fashion, 'to the name,' which Logan only bore by accident, his grandmother having wedded a kinless Logan who had no demonstrable connection with the house of Restalrig. Any mortal but the marquis would probably have brought Logan up as his heir, for the churlish peer had no nearer connection. But the marquis did more than sympathise with the Roman emperor who quoted 'after me the Last Day.' The emperor only meant that, after his time, he did not care how soon earth and fire were ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... wrong by expressing a doubt. Abishai is secure in his silence; and, such being the case, I believe—nay, I feel assured—that, it is better that we harbour the stranger here no longer. I am thankful that Lycidas has left us though his manner of departing seem somewhat churlish." ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... and then kept him at her side with long whispering conversations in which her cheek came in close proximity with his. It was not so easy as it seemed to make a conquest of Moro, although it was only a make-believe. He was not at all churlish; on the contrary, he had a just reputation of being gentlemanly and courteous with ladies; but when ladies stand in the way of billiards or tresillo there is nobody six miles round so cross and uncivil. Amalia was a great bore to him when the tresillo players were ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... character of a literature is noticed by Mr. Finlay. Temples open to the heavens, theatres for noonday light and large enough for receiving 30,000 citizens—these could no longer be transplanted from sunny regions of Hymettus to the churlish atmospheres which overcast with gloom so perpetual poor Ovid's sketches of his exile. Cherson, it is true, in the Tauric Chersonese, survived down to the middle of the tenth century; so much is certain from the evidence of a Byzantine emperor; and Mr. Finlay is disposed ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... man; nor do I think I ought to spare that pride which hath so completely turned your head. You have been tricked up with fine garments, and treated like the son of a gentleman, until you have forgot the fountain of your churlish blood." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... woorthie man the ambassador to shew you. [Sidenote: The cause of staying the present.] At the departure of Sinan Bassa the chiefe Vizir, and our ambassadors great friend toward the warres of Hungarie there was another Bassa appointed in his place, a churlish and harsh natured man, who vpon occasion of certaine Genouezes, escaping out of the castles standing toward the Euxine Sea, nowe called the black Sea, there imprisoned, apprehended and threatened to execute one of our Englishmen ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... chaleng'd me with thee to fight? lo present am I now. Wherefore if that thou hast any great grudge to me, Before this day be spent and past it shall reuenged be. Then spake god Mars and said, for that thou churlish wight, Thy brutish blacke people hast made with those white men to fight Which cal'd on me for aid, I bid thee warre for this. Then answered Vulcan straight and said that that coast sure was his. And therefore he would still his blacke burnt men defend, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... were to overthrow my soule and all. Should you reverse this sentence of my death, My selfe would play the death-man on my selfe And overtake your swift and winged soule, Ere churlish Caron had transported you Unto the fields ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... warm his pulses with Homer and calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not cultivating ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the Deacon hath pulse in store, To our patron Saint foul shame it were Should wayworn guest, with toil oppressed, Meet in his Abbey such churlish fare. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... dreadful about it," said Novodvoroff, overhearing the conversation. "The masses are always churlish and ignorant." ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... lay out for his adventure. To the pilot, and master, and every officer, and common saylor he gave liberal according to their degree, even to the ship boy, and then to every servant of the house, nay to the very kitchin wench who was so churlish unto him, and had so often basted him instead of her roast meats; having caused her to be called unto him he gave her an hundred pounds ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.

... Must, marching fatally through pain and mist, The God-bid levy of its powers enrol; When I presage that none shall hear the voice From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance, That sullen envy bade the churlish choice Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance; O God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... practices aboot him ava!" But all things in their own time and place. To understand the due weight and bearing of this feeling of optimism, it is necessary to remember that its happy owner had probably spent her youth in that golden age when it was deemed churlish to bottle the claret, and each guest filled his stoup at the fountain of the flowing hogshead; and if the darker days of dear claret came upon her times, there was still to fall back upon the silver age of smuggled usquebaugh, when the types of a really hospitable country-house ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... to Outina, who owed them two victories. The result was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, the plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny and Vasseur set forth, but were grossly deceived, led against a different enemy, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... not. He wandered about the vast and desolate lava fields and talked with spirits there. He learned rhythm and music from the swing of the waves. The "little people" in the wood were his servants when he needed help. In his closing years he occupied a cabin alone near Kauhola. Though not churlish, he cared little for human society,—it seemed so small to him after daily contemplation of the ocean and mountain majesties and the nightly vision of the stars; but he was alive to its interests, and when the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... he go to priestesses? I would swear that that is a pretence, and that this churlish Hittite, instead of going to a feast with women, is going to some ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... honest miller has a large tuft of hair on the palm of his hand), yet—with every trade in the world having some bad quality attached to it—bakers alone are exempt, and every one takes it for granted that they are sterling: indeed, there are some societies in which, no matter how gloomy and churlish the conversation may have become, you have but to mention bakers for voices to brighten suddenly and for a good influence to pervade every one. I say this is known for a fact, but not usually explained; the explanation ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... coverts; one hiding place being the cow-stable. Here Charles Hosmer happened to find me, just incidentally, as it seemed, but really by kindly design no doubt, and gave me a hearty greeting which I couldn't be so churlish ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... recognise their betters and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the late of Paul and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have prevailed upon me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in the way of observing than healing their infirmities, we were content to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... youth in another part of the crowd prompting the demand. So Messer Guido, as herald of the general wish, smilingly refused to take back the paper parchment, and Dante, ever too wise to be stubborn for stubbornness' sake, surrendered, where to persist in refusal would have seemed churlish to his host and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... purpose. Sometimes I hoped, but more often I despaired; his fall seemed to me fearfully rapid, though now the three years seem to have been interminable. At last I had no hope but that of concealing the truth from you all. You thought me churlish, Kate, in my answer to your proposal to spend last winter with me? My darling, I dared not have you in my house. But it is over now. I knew how that last horrible attack would end when I sent for papa. He had gone through two before that, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... greater advantage at the ball, if you had been dressed out in that damned coat, which would have made you look just like the village bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby wore it at ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... low tone the suspicions of old maids and the churlish scruples of Catholics, that made so many obstacles to helping a fellow creature, and wished Miss Arthuret a hearty rheumatism or toothache as the reward of her excursion; but the lady presently appeared, to cut short further ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... green wood, come away, The floor with grass and flowers is gay! There ’neath no tree shalt thou descry In churlish guise old jealousy. Fear not my love, afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... surly or severe in the whole scene. It seemed impossible that any of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison door. Storehouses of good things, rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter— these were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust, and cruelty, and restraint ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... years he was the younger. But whenever Odysseus full of wiles rose up, he stood and looked down, with eyes fixed upon the ground, and waved not his staff whether backwards or forwards, but held it stiff, like to a man of no understanding; one would deem him to be churlish, and naught but a fool. But when he uttered his great voice from his chest, and words like unto the snowflakes of winter, then could no mortal man contend with Odysseus; then marvelled we not ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... sentiments, Byron wrote to Murray: "As for the 'orthodox,' let us hope they will buy on purpose to abuse—you will forgive the one if they will do the other." Yet he did alter Stanza VIII, and inserted what Moore calls a "magnificent stanza" in place of one that was churlish and sneering, and in all ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... no more mistaking the genuine kindness and sincerity of the invitation than the delicacy with which it was given. To have refused would not only have been churlish, but it would have been for a drowning man to knock aside a kindly hand held out to help him; so Arnold accepted, and the two new strangely met and strangely assorted friends walked away together in the direction ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... observed that he made no merit of his refusal, and that the facts did not come to light till after his death. He kept an exact account of his salary, of his share of the profits accruing from the trade in salt, and of those presents which, according to the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to refuse. Out of the sum arising from these resources, he defrayed the expenses of his situation. The surplus he divided among a few attached friends who had accompanied him to India. He always boasted, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... return than my abrupt and rather churlish departure from "Wake Robin," and, if it isn't already too late to restore myself to your graces, I hope you will accept my regrets and apologies, and the sketch from Thimble Island, which goes to you by express. I hope you will like it. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... a man sometimes met with in society, whose business, when he talks, seems to be the administration of rebuke, in a spirit and with a tone of voice churlish and sarcastic, by which he would stop the increase of knowledge, check the development of mind, and arrest the growth of heroic souls. He is far from amiable in his disposition, or happy in his temper. He is a knotty piece of ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... Dessein open'd the door of the Remise, was another old tatter'd desobligeant; and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before,—the very sight of it stirr'd up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought 'twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... Prince Otto he says, 'Well, we will not give in that we are finally beaten. . . . I still mean to get my health again; I still purpose, by hook or crook, this book or the next, to launch a masterpiece.' It would be a churlish or a very dainty critic who should deny that he has launched masterpieces, but whether he ever launched his masterpiece is an open question. Of the story that he was writing just before his death he is reported to have said that 'the goodness of it frightened ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh

... pine torch, Bianca. The old staircase Is full of pitfalls, and the churlish moon Grows, like a miser, niggard of her beams, And hides her face behind a muslin mask As harlots do when they go forth to snare Some wretched soul in sin. Now, I will get Your cloak and sword. Nay, pardon, my good Lord, It is but meet that I should ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde

... towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves. The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and tangles of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... old Sir Thomas Erpingham: A good soft pillow for that good white head Were better than a churlish turf of France. ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... suspicions were again aroused, for from this time he managed to be with me, on one pretence or another until noon. Moreover, his manner grew each moment more churlish, his hints plainer; until I could scarcely avoid noticing the one or the other. About mid-day, having followed me for the twentieth time into the street, he came to the point by asking me rudely if I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... consequences; the consultation with the lawyer, and the immortal pair of letters to which this gives rise, complete the argument of the whole poem. But the story is as nothing; throughout we have little really kept before us but the sordid vices of the sectaries, their hypocrisy, their churlish ungraciousness, their greed of money and authority, their fast and loose morality, their inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggerel metre, never heavy or coarse, but framed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... relative, to those whom venerable age and long experience have rendered their superiors. She would do nothing without Naomi; but consults her wishes, and seeks her concurrence in attempting to procure subsistence by means which she deemed the best adapted to their present poverty. A churlish temper would have submitted with extreme reluctance, and many taunting reproaches to what might easily have been represented as the drudgery and degradation of the gleaner's field; but this excellent daughter-in-law displayed a spirit ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... receiving the care of man, and by contributing to his wants. They have become a part of the family; and their individual characters are as well understood and appreciated as those of the human members. One tree is harsh and crabbed, another mild; one is churlish and illiberal, another exhausts itself with its free-hearted bounties. Even the shapes of apple-trees have great individuality, into such strange postures do they put themselves, and thrust their contorted branches so grotesquely in all directions. And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity—there my friends (or any good man) may command me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to myself. Nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs of remorse I ever felt was when a child—when my kind old aunt had strained her pocketstrings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much That, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none. I am the man. If it be so, as 't is, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... accomplished unless the hostile divisions of Lower Canada were first reconciled. As far as the French population were concerned, he found an explanation of their antagonism, not so much in their unjust exclusion from political power, as in the grudging and churlish patronage with which privileges were one by one conceded; while, on the other hand, the Loyalists were intolerant to a degree, regarding every favour shown to their rivals as a slight put upon themselves, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... your hearth to the lake of fire and brimstone," shouted Denys, who could speak Flemish fluently. "Your own servant bade me sit there till you came, else I had ne'er troubled your hearth. My malison on it, and on the churlish roof-tree that greets an unoffending stranger this way," and he strode scowling to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... Without being churlish or obstinate, Jack was reserved and all they knew, which could have been obtained outside as well as from him was that he lived in another county, some ten miles distant, that he was the only child of a worthy widow and that ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... may be," replied one of the officers. "How they will prove when they come into action with the enemy, I can not tell; but a more perverse and churlish set of fellows in camp, than these I have got in my regiment, I never knew. The other day, for example, when there had been a sacrifice, the meat of the victims was sent around to be distributed to ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... McMurrough, who had come from the house in search of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his enemy, and he appealed ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... become of your churlish, morose temper, Geoffrey?" said he to me one day, at dinner; "why, boy, you are greatly changed of late. From a sulky, impertinent, vindictive lad, you have become an ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... is still more often secretly entertained, or taken for proved, by the younger generation—to wit, the complaint that Scott is 'commonplace' and 'conventional,' not merely in thought, but in expression. As to the thought, that is best met by the reply churlish, if not even by the reproof valiant. Scott's thought is never commonplace, and never merely conventional: it can only seem so to those who have given their own judgments in bondage to a conventional and temporary cant of unconventionality. In respect of expression, the complaint will ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... name of this Society, and in the name of my fellow-countrymen generally, I here solemnly protest against the perpetration of any more acts of useless and churlish Vandalism, in the needless destruction and removal of our Scottish antiquarian remains. The hearts of all leal Scotsmen, overflowing as they do with a love of their native land, must ever deplore the unnecessary demolition of all such early relics and monuments ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... ah! neither Petrea's great prowess, nor her great plans; neither the social theatre, nor the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, least of all the thee-and-thou friendship, availed anything towards enlivening the churlish young girl. Petrea saw plainly that an invitation to dance would avail more than all her propositions, so, sighing deeply because she was not a man to offer so great a pleasure, she rose up, and left the object of her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... Put the old people in a fright: Philemon whisper'd to his wife, "These men are—Saints—I'll lay my life!" The strangers overheard, and said, "You're in the right—but be'nt afraid: No hurt shall come to you or yours: But for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, They and their village shall be drown'd; Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, And grow a church before your eyes." Scarce had they spoke, when fair and soft, The roof began to mount aloft; Aloft rose ev'ry beam and rafter; The heavy wall went ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... the Salisbury, less churlish than Matthews, at once put two pinnaces and seventy-six men at the Council's disposal. A small expedition of eleven gallivats under Stanton was also fitted out, and a battery erected by the Portuguese at Surey to hinder provisions coming into ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... come to Banneker with any such project, it would have been curtly rejected. Ives kept in the background. The proposal came from Marrineal, and in such form that for the recipient of the honor to refuse it would have appeared impossibly churlish. Little though he desired or liked such a function, Banneker accepted with a good grace, and set himself to write an editorial, special to the event. Its title was, "What Does Your Newspaper Mean to You?" headed with the quotation from the Areopagitica: and he compressed ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... any time: But the Eternal Creator hath in this case well ordained a certain Order and Law for his Creatures, that the Sun should give light by day, and the Moon by night, and so all Creatures should be served. Those Children which are subject to the influence of Saturn, are melancholy, churlish, continually murmuring, as old covetous people, who do no good to their own Bodies, and yet never have enough; they put their Bodies to much labour, torment themselves with thoughts and whimsies, seldom recreate themselves, or are merry with other people, nor do they ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus

... last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who had been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years—only she, of all the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face toward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over toward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... rest "under the cross of gold that shines over river and city," and the tolling bells and echoing cannon sound over hushed London, and the silent masses line the streets, and the learned and the noble stand uncovered around the open grave, it would be a diseased and churlish mind which did not feel the spell of ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... blunt, rough man's demeanour is unfair to his tenderness. I do not think so. For his churlishness is really very trying and painful, even to the man's wife, though a moment's tenderness will make her and you forget it. The man really is churlish, and much more often than he is tender. His demeanour is merely just to his character. So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode against his style. You must not say that his style won't let his matter "come out." You ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... shield of the formidable Templar. It was, indeed, a splendid moment! What matter that no Templar was allowed by the rules of his Order to take part in so secular and frivolous an affair as a tournament? It is the privilege of great masters to make things so, and it is a churlish thing to gainsay it. Was it not Wendell Holmes who described the prosaic man, who enters a drawing-room with a couple of facts, like ill-conditioned bull-dogs at his heels, ready to let them loose on any play of fancy? The great writer can never go wrong. If Shakespeare ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hardly refuse; it would have been churlish—unpolitic. I did not know why he came. He was evidently ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... in the mess who would have naught to do with our philosophy—a churlish, ill-tempered, unphilosophical, superstitious old bear of a quarter-gunner; a believer in Tophet, for which he was accordingly preparing himself. Priming was his name; but methinks I have spoken of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... dark, winter afternoons, driving them home again, down the broad bridle-path that led over the 'raise'. They had been a race of few words, 'keeping themselves to themselves', as the phrase goes; beholden to no man, filled with a dogged, churlish pride—an upright, old-fashioned race, stubborn, long-lived, rude in speech, slow ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... always watching to surprise it. He knew that somewhere she must get a feeling to live upon, for she was not a woman who could live without loving. He wanted to prove to himself the wrong he felt. What did she hide in her heart? Where did it go? Even Frank had his churlish delicacies; he never reminded her of how much she had once loved him. For that Marie was grateful ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... enjoyed the emolument of his office for three years, and he places that emolument at a lower figure than Burke did. He could not have received more than between two and three thousand pounds of public money; and when we consider what manner of men have fattened on the national purse, it would be churlish to grudge that small sum to the historian of the Decline and Fall. The misfortune is that, reasonably or otherwise, doubts were raised as to Gibbon's complete straightforwardness and honourable adhesion to party ties in accepting office. He says himself: ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... woman, as much as once in her lifetime, to offer to over-top her husband. I do not intend that women should he slaves by this subjection: 'Let every man love his wife as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband' (Eph. 5:33). Abigail would not speak a word to her churlish husband until he was in a sober temper, and his wine gone out of him—(Bunyan's Christian Behaviour, vol. 2, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... about it. While not actually apologizing, he went so far as to explain that it was "old Gerry" whom he had had in his mind when he started the roll on its course. After a glance at old Gerry—a chinless child of about nineteen—Roland felt that it would be churlish to be angry with a young man whose intentions had been so wholly admirable. Old Gerry had one of those faces in which any alteration, even the comparatively limited one which a roll would be capable of producing, was bound to be for ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... often doth befall, They're paid, and never read at all. Parsons must practise what they teach, And bishops are compell'd to preach. She who on earth was nice and prim, Of delicacy full, and whim; 450 Whose tender nature could not bear The rudeness of the churlish air, Is doom'd, to mortify her pride, The change of weather to abide, And sells, whilst tears with liquor mix, Burnt brandy on the shore of Styx. Avaro[212], by long use grown bold In every ill which brings him gold, Who his Reedemer would pull down, And sell his God ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... her he'd try to find Hazel nuts and berries, too. Thus he showed his heart was kind— That he had no churlish mind When such ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... the person you thus served came to know it was you who rendered the service, he did not feel thankful, he did not think it handsome of you, thus to repair any little harm he might have done you before, but became churlish and sore and cross-grained, and with a wretched false pride said that because he had offended you once he resented your taking the liberty of befriending him now, would you not think that person an ungrateful fellow; ungrateful not only to you his fellow-man,—that is of less moment,—but ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... day, imploring heavenly grace, Once more he sought the town, but all in vain; A band of robbers had despoiled the place, And all the churlish citizens were slain. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... appointed troop," Archie said looking at the men, who were drawn up in order, "and not to be despised. Their leader looks an honest fellow; and if the lady means honestly it were churlish indeed, to refuse her aid when she ventures to break with her family and to declare for Scotland. No; methinks that, with your permission, I will run the risk, such as it may be, and will join this band with my own. I will keep a sharp watch over them ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... incalculable value of the institution itself. You are to inquire also into your own heart and conduct, and keep careful watch over yourself, that you go not astray. If you harbor ill-will and jealousy, if you are hospitable to intolerance and bigotry, and churlish to gentleness and kind affections, opening wide your heart to one and closing its portals to the other, it is time for you to set in order your own temple, or else you wear in vain the name and insignia of a Mason, while yet uninvested with ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... cup of coffee, a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit, and a plate of fried beef. There was something odd and depressing in this silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's "old woman" from some dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or was this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedridden crone? From the extension at times came a ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... undergo, be he professional or a strolling amateur, is the immediate demand for the picture. The mysteries of dark rooms and developing are not to be lightly explained, and the refusal to show the picture, for which the vain Montenegrins have so willingly stood, is accounted churlish. They are only appeased with a promise of a picture a few weeks later. Their names and addresses are hurriedly scribbled and handed with many peremptory requests for the picture to be sent ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... imagination; what would you have? There is nothing more churlish than our manner of acting; but to resume, what is more to the point, this blade of steel will suffice, for if you refuse to obey my slightest injunction, my lord, I have already said by way of warning that I shall kill ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... blossomes of my blisse, Forcing diuorce betwixt my loue and me; For in the late conflict with Portingale My valour drew me into dangers mouth Till life to death made passage through my wounds. When I was slaine, my soule descended straight To passe the flowing streame of Archeron; But churlish Charon, only boatman there, Said that, my rites of buriall not performde, I might not sit amongst his passengers. Ere Sol had slept three nights in Thetis lap, And slakte his smoaking charriot in her floud, By Don Horatio, our knight-marshals sonne, My funerals ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd

... Yes, it was true that he had more than once encouraged the hope now frankly expressed. Indulging a correspondent frankness, he might explain that Peak's position was so distasteful to him that it disturbed the future with many kinds of uncertainty. But this would be churlish. He must treat his guest as a gentleman, so long as nothing compelled him to take the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... saw the road open to an argument. He was in ecstasy; a long argument—an argument full of churlish flings and boorish slurs, which he fondly believed passed for polished satire and keen irony. He did not know Rocjean; he never could know a man like him; he never could learn the truth that confidence will overpower strength; only at last, when through his hide and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... the feet of men and animals, the farmer and his wife stood in hot dispute. The woman, tall, gaunt, and ill-dressed, spoke fast, passion and misery in all her attitude and in every tone and gesture. The man, chunky in figure and churlish in demeanour, held a horsewhip in his hand, answering his wife back word for word in language ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... about, I suppose," was the answer, and it was given in such a surly tone with such a churlish manner that Viola flushed with anger and bit her lips to keep back a ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... well known to many to be particularly unsocial, as there is no Ordinary, or united company, but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman got into a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind being black. 'Why, Sir, said (Johnson,) it has been accounted for in three ways: either by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... in which articles we were no economists, consequently few florins could be spared for the purchase of poultry and butcher meat; but then these articles were to be procured, by the same means which had given us the island of Walcheren, namely powder and shot. The country people were very churlish, and not at all inclined to barter; and as we had nothing to give in exchange, we avoided useless discussion. Turkeys, by us short-sighted mortals, were often mistaken for pheasants; cocks and hens, for partridges; tame ducks and geese for wild; in short, such was our hurry and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... "how can you forgive me for this that I have done? And how can I now help you out of this miserable dog's work? Methinks that on the cold frosty nights when you are out there, minding this churlish farmer's sheep, it will not be easily that I shall lie in my warm bed. But how to help it, I do not know. Haply the law was made for vagabond thieves and cattle lifters, but it still is law, and in my place I could not ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... to his customers. But the same day Dale came in and asked Prime to loan him over night the sum he had just paid in, as a personal favor. Prime says he hesitated, not because he suspected anything, but on grounds of common prudence. It seemed to him, however, that it would be churlish and punctilious to refuse to accommodate the man to whom he owed his good fortune, and so he lent the money. Next day, Dale failed disgracefully. Of course Mr. Prime feels bound in honor to pay his customers their profits, which happen to exceed ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... birches. There was a time when he was looked upon as a genial fairy, who would bring Yule-logs to the farmers on Christmas Eve and direct the woodmen in their tasks of planting and felling; latterly, however, he is said to have grown churlish and malignant. The reckless felling of young trees for fencing and pit-props is supposed to have roused his ill-will, and sinister stories have been told of children who have gone into the woods for acorns or hazel-nuts and have never ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... linger outside; and of these only two appear to do so with enjoyment. They are some paces apart from the third, who is now left to herself: for it is a woman. Not that they are unacquainted with her, or in any way wishing to be churlish. But, simply, because neither can spare word or thought for any one, save their two ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... an attested copy of all the writings; I send you 45 kreutzers. How could you possibly accept such a proposal from our churlish landlord when accompanied by a threat? Where was your good sense? ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... my arrival, when I was already infinitely disgusted with the little Pot-house in which I was forced to stay, and had made up my mind that the people in county Mayo were a churlish set, I sent my horse on to a meet of the fox-hounds, and followed after myself ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope

... mean sorrowful or sinful, and the sorrows and the sins had been closely connected. A sorely tried man he had been. Far away back in the past had been his banishment from home; his disappointment and hard service with the churlish Laban; the misbehaviour of his sons; the death of Rachel—that wound which was never stanched; and then the twenty years' mourning for Rachel's son, the heir of his inheritance. These were the evils, the sins were as many, for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... That at least is the opinion of the sagacious Pepys on the later of these incidents. 'Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at anything that looks strange.' Defoe says that the English are 'the most churlish people alive' to foreigners, with the result that 'all men think an Englishman the devil.' In the 17th and 18th centuries Scotland seems to have ranked as a foreign country, and the presence of Scots in London was much resented. Cleveland thought ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... conveyed, then, through the medium of characterization, with the help of little human touches. The girl must be shown as sweet, clean, without a wrong thought; the man must be clearly depicted, his reason for being so seemingly churlish and careless of the duties imposed upon him by his ownership of many tenements must be handled in such a way that he will ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... a quandary. The thought of the grimy hand touching Clare's was detestable yet, if the request had been made in innocence it seemed churlish to object. Clare, who overheard, settled the question for him, by coming out and offering her hand to ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... neither permit me to enter your house nor shake your hand? I was not so churlish when ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... proceed from too liberal refreshments and over-watering in dry and scorching seasons; especially in nurseries: The water should therefore be fitly qualify'd, neither brackish, bitter, stagnat, or putrid, sower, acrimonious, vitriolic, arenous and gravelly, churlish, harsh and lean; (I mention them promiscuously) and whatever vicious quality they are perceptibly tinctur'd and impregnate with, being by no means proper drink for plants: Wherefore a very critical examen of this so necessary an element (the very principle, as some think, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... not a large sum. John o' the Scales had often had twice as much from him, but the churlish fellow started ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... exhilarates the mind, quiets jars, feuds and discontents, making the most churlish tempers surprizingly kind and loving. Nor have private persons only been the better for this reconciling vertue, but whole states and kingdoms, nay, the greatest empires in the world have often received the benefit of it; the most destructive wars have been ended, ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous

... arrogate to yourself with a little more gentleness and common politeness? How petty and narrow it looks to use even an undoubted right, far more a tribal taboo, in a tyrannical and needlessly aggressive manner! How mean and small and low and churlish! The damage we did your land, as you call it—if we did any at all—was certainly not a ha'pennyworth. Was it consonant with your dignity as a chief in the tribe to get so hot and angry about so small a value? How grotesque to make so much ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... of an approaching storm, induced him to seek a temporary refuge there; at the same time, he counselled Ovando to delay for a few days the departure of the fleet, then riding in the harbor, which was destined to carry Bobadilla and the rebels with their ill-gotten treasures back to Spain. The churlish governor, however, not only refused Columbus admittance, but gave orders for the instant departure of the vessels. The apprehensions of the experienced mariner were fully justified by the event. Scarcely had the Spanish fleet quitted its moorings, before one of those tremendous ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... worse becomen them." With respect to men in other stations of life he is pleased to say, it is decent for a priest "to be sober and sad;" "a judge to be incorrupted, solitary, and unacquainted with courtiers or courtly entertainments... without plait or wrinkle, sour in look and churlish in speech; contrariwise a courtly gentleman to be lofty and curious in countenance, yet sometimes a creeper and a curry favell with his superiors." "And in a prince it is decent to go slowly and to march with ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... himself than whimsical eccentricity or churlish austerity. But there was occasionally an air of bravado in some of his followers as if they had taken out a patent for some knowing machine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimed more for each other than was ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... a string of beauties such as it rarely falls to the lot of the critic to commemorate. Had age and personal hardihood been added, it would have defied the cavils of the most churlish criticism, and deprived even enmity of all pretence ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... manner the light allowed them to see was friendly and receptive, as though he listened to brilliant suggestions. He had a nice courtesy, and Miss Hinsdale felt continually that she was cleverer than usual this evening, and no one took his silence to be churlish, though they all innocently wondered why he did not talk more; however, it was probable that a man who had been so interestingly and terribly shot would be rather silent for ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... I always mistrusted those laurestines! They sent me back my brother churlish and embittered, but oh! that in my steadfast Roger they should have worked such a ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... them for lifelong malice. First, on that memorable occasion of the robbed carriage, he had exposed their theft and their falsehood. Secondly, he had had the good luck to save their lives and win everlasting renown for the brave act; and this, to churlish, thankless, and insolent natures like theirs, was the greater offense of the two; and now he had had the unpardonable impudence to eclipse them in the school. He! the object of their father's bounty, as they called him. They lost no opportunity ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... childhood, breast-infancy, and the silent dark of her mother's womb, and, still back, through the silence and the dark of the time when she, Josephine, was not yet born, to the light and life of a previous living, when she had been a churlish, suspicious, and embittered old man, by name Jean-Claude Bourdon, who had served his time in the Seventh Artillery at Besancon, and who died at the age of seventy, long bedridden. Yes, and did not Colonel de Rochas in turn hypnotize this shade of Jean-Claude Bourdon, so that ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... 'What a churlish dog it is! Now had you, Master Dick, proposed to me that we should go down and pass a week at a certain small thatched cottage on the banks of the Ban, where a Presbyterian minister with eight olive branches vegetates, discussing tough mutton and tougher ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... rustling; By a daisy, whose leaves spread, Shut when Titan goes to bed; Or a shady bush or tree; She could more infuse in me, Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man. By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness: The dull loneness, the black shade That these hanging vaults have made; The strange music of the waves Beating on these hollow caves; This black den which rocks emboss Overgrown with eldest moss; The rude portals ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... might take the work to London on certain conditions, which I would inform him of. He then asserted that it was a friendly gift, and made use of this phrase in the newspapers after the second concert, without giving me the most remote hint on the subject. As Maelzel is a rude, churlish man, entirely devoid of education or cultivation, it is easy to conceive the tenor of his conduct to me during this time, which still further irritated me. Who could bear to be forced to bestow a friendly gift on such a man? ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... affection. She will see nothing but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive his ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable aid. I was from the first a good ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... restlessly. "I must not think of staying in it!" she replied. "But I do not wish to seem churlish—or ungrateful for your care and kindness;—will you tell the King—" Here she broke off abruptly, and fixed her eyes searchingly on his face. "Strange!" she murmured—"I seem to have seen you ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... merits as a prompt and liberal paymaster. I do not think that in all his life Philip Jocelyn had ever directly or indirectly caused a pang of pain or sorrow to any human being, unless it was, indeed, to a churlish heir-at-law, who may have looked with a somewhat evil eye upon the young man's vigorous and healthful aspect, which gave little ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... he was in many ways more simple than she. She laid to sleep his suspicions. She could feel his relief that she was not romantic, that she wanted nothing whatever from him. He was ill—therefore was often churlish. He tried to hurt her again and again with cruel words and then waited to see whether she were hurt. She never showed him. He treated her with contempt, often not answering her questions, laughing at her little stupidities, complaining of her forgetfulness ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... its productions are evidently those of a colder and less happy climate. What the former loses in grandeur and picturesque effect, it gains in fertility of soil and warmth of temperature. In the lower division of the province you feel that the industry of the inhabitants is forcing a churlish soil for bread; while in the upper, the land seems willing to yield her increase to a moderate exertion. Remember, these are merely the cursory remarks of a passing traveller, and founded on ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... wants of the homeless, the poor, the suffering; her wealth was freely spent for food for the starving while supplies could yet be bought either near or in distant baronies; and when known supplies failed her lavish offers tempted the churlish farmers, who still hoarded grain that they might enrich themselves in the great dearth, to sell some of their garnered stores. When she could no longer induce them to part with their grain, her own winter provisions, wine and corn, were distributed ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in a churlish tone, and he pressed his lips together tightly, as Emily came into the room: ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... mighty kitchens are prepared the prodigious supply of meats destined for the support of the poor or the entertainment of the traveller. No kindly porter stands at the gate, to bid the stranger enter and partake of the munificent abbot's hospitality, but a churlish guard bids him hie away, and menaces him if he tarries with his halbert. Closed are the buttery-hatches and the pantries; and the daily dole of bread hath ceased. Closed, also, to the brethren is the refectory. The cellarer's office ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... APEMAN'TUS, a churlish Athenian philosopher, who snarled at men systematically, but showed his cynicism to be mere affectation, when Timon attacked him with his own weapons.—Shakespeare, Timon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... The churlish tones were so unlike Tim that Sara looked up at him in some amazement. He was staring down at her with a strange, awakened expression in his eyes; his face was very white ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler



Words linked to "Churlish" :   ill-natured



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