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Cringe   Listen
verb
Cringe  v. t.  (past & past part. cringed; pres. part. cringing)  To draw one's self together as in fear or servility; to bend or crouch with base humility; to wince; hence, to make court in a degrading manner; to fawn. "When they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions." "Sly hypocrite,... who more than thou Once fawned and cringed, and servilely adored Heaven's awful monarch?" "Flatterers... are always bowing and cringing."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books



... not. It still held strong, and though with the Renaissance there came about a strange mingling of crime and corruption, aestheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over nature, the antique, the fable, allegory, history, portraiture; but ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; 10 Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais[2] climb and know it not; Over our manhood bond the skies, Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; 15 With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Its arms outstretched, the druid[3] wood Waits with its benedicite:[4] And ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... from the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap we lie; From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky, We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like a ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service

... know, madam, what is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of God, and lavish them away at watering-places or elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... to prune. Sneeshin mill, a snuff-box. Snell, bitter, biting. Snick, a latch; snick-drawing scheming; he weel a snick can draw he is good at cheating. Snirtle, to snigger. Snoods, fillets worn by maids. Snool, to cringe, to snub. Snoove, to go slowly. Snowkit, snuffed. Sodger, soger, a soldier. Sonsie, sonsy, pleasant, good-natured, jolly. Soom, to swim. Soor, sour. Sough, v. sugh. Souk, suck. Soupe, sup, liquid. Souple, supple. Souter, cobbler. Sowens, porridge of oat ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... sycophants bend their base knees in the court And servilely cringe round the gate, And barter their honour to earn the support Of the wealthy, the titled, the great; Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em; I love not to pamper ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... who wills to please, Must humbly crawl upon his knees, And kiss the hand that beats him; Or, if he dare attempt to walk, Must toe the mark that others chalk, And cringe ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... barony or county to repel The rushing river from his gurgling throat. He has valets now enough: they stood aloof then, Shaking their dripping ears upon the shore, All roaring "Help!" but offering none; and as For duty (as you call it)—I did mine then, 440 Now do yours. Hence, and bow and cringe him here! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... unconfined, No politics disturb their mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport Nor know who's in or out at court. They never to the levee go To treat, as dearest friend, a foe: They never importune his grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place: Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.[1] Fraught with invective, they ne'er go To folks at Paternoster Row. No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, No pickpockets, or poetasters, Are known to honest quadrupeds; No single brute his fellow ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an ingratiating smile as he rasped out a ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... me. Let that pass! It perish'd, and all perish'd with it. Ambition? Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition. Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great Field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State? I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois To defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art? But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart, Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress 'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... an itinerant tinker was also an itinerant political preacher, and seeing that he could prevail nothing by secular pleas, he betook himself to his spiritual armory, and in a voice of sour derision that made Bessie Fairfax cringe asked the doctor if he had yet received the Devil's Decalogue according to h'act of Parliament and justices' notices that might be read on every wall?—and he proceeded to recite it: "Thou shalt remove the old landmarks, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... should complaint be made of him at Rome, his corruption and cruelties, his extortions and the unjustifiable slaughter he had caused would all be brought against him. He was the Roman ruler, but the people over whom he exercized official dominion delighted in seeing him cringe, when they cracked, with vicious snap above his head, the whip of a threatened report about him to his ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... a bore than they. They were almost always solemn and portentous, and they were for the most part of a deathly respectability. She wasn't necessarily snobbish, unless it was snobbish to want the best. She didn't cringe, she didn't make herself smaller than she was; she took on the contrary a stand of her own and attracted things to herself. Naturally she was possible only in America—only in a country where whole ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... from the rest, betokening, by their grave countenances and moody whispers, how sensitively they felt the slight to Lord Warwick's embassy in the visit of the Count de la Roche, and how little they were disposed to cringe to the rising sun of the Woodvilles. There, collected into a puissance whose discontent hard sufficed to shake a firmer throne (the young Raoul de Fulke, the idolater of Warwick, the impersonation in himself of the old Norman seignorie, in their centre), with folded arms and lowering brows, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in the canyons of dismal unrest; I cringe — I'm so weak and so small. I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed With the haste and the waste of it all. The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat, The fear in the faces I see; The getting, the spending, the fever, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... by such a spirit—as to my lords and masters; that I shall have no other God but this congregation; that I shall deny my own conscience for theirs; that I shall go about the trivial, nonsensical things they call my pastoral duties, in fear and trembling; that my ministry is to cringe when they speak, and do their will regardless of what I feel to be the will of Christ! Faugh!" Big Dan drew himself erect. "If this is what the call to the ministry means, I am beginning to understand some things that ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... another attempt upon the girl's part to carry her point, he stamped his foot imperatively, to emphasize some command, and, with a look which made her cringe like a whipped cur before him; when, shooting a glance of fire and hate at Edith, she turned away, with a crestfallen air, and went, ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... or imaginings of children!—the commons be but slaves to the nobles; the nobles to the senate; the senate to their creditors, their purchasers, their consuls; the last at once their tools, and their tyrants! Go, young man, go. Salute, cringe, fawn upon your consul! Nathless, for thou hast mind enough to mark and note the truth of what I tell thee; thou wilt think upon this, and perchance one day, when the time shall have come, wilt speak, act, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... Majesty my person, my sword, my castle, and my lands. I will, at your word, prostrate myself at your feet, and humbly beg pardon for any offence I have committed against you, but to tell the Archbishop I am sorry when I am not, and to cringe before him and supplicate his grace, well, your Majesty, as between man and man, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... better than secret love" (Proverbs xxvii. 5). They believe that the Lord has yet many things to say unto them, and they are willing and glad for Him to say them by whom He will, but especially by their leaders and their brethren. While they do not fawn and cringe before men, nor believe everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... said warmly, "though for you the promotion is perilous. To be Nero's friend is to be condemned beforehand to death, though for a time he may shower favours upon you. He is fickle and inconstant, and you have not learned to cringe and flatter, and are as likely as not to anger him by ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... unresisting hinge Threw wide her hospitable door, To one whose spirit did not cringe Though he was weak, and knew he bore No right her ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... comparatively lucky. Mister Lynch, our officer, was what I may call a normal bucko. He hazed for the results rather than for the pleasure of hazing, though I think he did get some satisfaction out of thumping the men. You feel a fine thrill when you see a half dozen huskies cringe away before you with fear in their eyes. I imagine it is the same thrill a wild animal tamer feels as he faces his beasts. I felt this fascinating sensation many times after I had become a mate of ships. Lynch had no mercy on the stiffs ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... cringe of terror run along the rank of the doomed wretches, and, wicked villains as they were, I felt sorry for them. Some minutes, perhaps two or three, passed before anything fresh occurred, during which She appeared from the movement of her head—for, of course, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... "Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... said with another chilling smile. "You do well to cringe, for I'm death itself. Even in death I could kill you, like a snake." And with that his voice took on the tones of a circus barker. "Yes, I'm a freak, as the gentleman so wisely said. That's what one doctor who dared talk ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... which was to continue through life, I considered deeply on the humours of the spectators. I saw that the character of the English was servile to rank, and yielding to pretension—they admire you for your acquaintance, and cringe to you for your conceit. The first thing, therefore, was to know great people—the second to controul them. I dressed well, and had good horses—that was sufficient to make me sought by the young of my own sex. I talked scandal, and was never abashed—that was more than enough ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... you now by offering to undertake a special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through—but my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for every crown-piece I put in my pocket—not bound to denounce, deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread, and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad, base life harmlessly ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... and to reverence our tormentor is repulsive and despicable, and since we refuse to allow man to tyrannize over man, what degradation it is for the human race to cringe and bow down unconditionally to the imagination in the great realm ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... the house Amos smiled and stroked his beard. "Truly," he thought, "these Christians hate us, but we have them in our power. It is pleasant to be hated and yet to know that it is to us they must cringe when they are in need; and it is very pleasant to refuse. My friend Gregorio is not happy now that he is ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... Esmond, and condescended to be very civil to him; and some days after his arrival, Harry, laughing, told this story to Lady Esmond, remarking how strange it was that men famous for learning and renowned over Europe, should, nevertheless, so bow down to a title, and cringe to a nobleman ever so poor. At this, Mistress Beatrix flung up her head, and said, it became those of low origin to respect their betters; that the parsons made themselves a great deal too proud, she ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... pyramids and empires, trampling crowns beneath thy hoofs; All men respect thee; nay, adore thee! To invoke thy favour, popes offer thee their triple crowns, and kings their sceptres; peoples, their secret sorrows; poets, their renown. All cringe and kneel before thee, yet thou rushest on over ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... fool, Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, [Too] Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, [bashful, cringe] Let him draw near; And owre this grassy heap sing dool, [woe] And drap ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... had made him a prisoner. She was wonderful. She was panting in her excitement. From the floor Blake had noticed that her little white finger was pressing gently against the trigger of the rifle. It had made him shudder. It made the Eskimo cringe a bit now as Philip tied his hands behind him. And Philip saw it, and his heart thumped. Celie ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... made her cringe in the deep chair. She was losing her clear, sweet vision of that blessed night when Gaston and she had stood transfigured! If only she could have held to that, all would have been so simple—but with that fading glory gone she would be ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... the orchard a girl, walking slowly to the house, had stopped, terrified; shrinking for him, not for herself, as with the unerring instinct of her sex she realized how his pride would cringe before such ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... stumps; the fields on each side stretched burnt and bare. And then came the climax: something passed us,—high above our heads, I fancy, though its frightful winds seemed brushing us,—a ghost of the night, an aerial demon, a shrieking thing that made the man beside me cringe and shudder. It was new to me, but I could not mistake it. It was what the French call an obus, a word that in some subtle manner seems more menacing and dreadful than our own term ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... filial affection which should have blessed all these empty years? A wickedly ludicrous memory forbade the solemnity of a reconciliation: below any attempt the father might make, there would be a grin, somewhere; below any attempt the son might make, there would be a cringe, somewhere. The only possible hope was in absolute, flat commonplace. Play-writing, as a subject of conversation, was ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... of Israel was over—the bitter centuries of the badge and the byword, slaughter and spoliation; no longer, O God! to cringe in false humility, the scoff of the street-boy, the mockery of mankind, penned in Ghettos, branded with the wheel or the cap—but restored to divine favor as every Prophet had predicted, and uplifted to the sovereignty ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... Lady Dorinda's belongings, numbered among the goods of the household, were also placed near the gate. She sat within the hall, wrapped for her journey, composed and silent. For when the evil day actually overtook Lady Dorinda, she was too thorough a Briton to cringe. She met her second repulse from Acadia as she had met her first, when Claude La Tour found her his only consolation. In this violent uprooting of family life so long grown to one place, Le Rossignol was scarcely missed. Each one thought of the person dearest to himself ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... hate him and his trade: Who bade us so to cringe and bend, And all God's peaceful people made To such as ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... responsible for all the blunders of his subordinates. A rich man, and the scion of an historic house, he has led the life of a galley-slave; an honest man, he has been doomed to perpetual prevarication; a humane man, he has had to condone every atrocity; an independent man, he must cringe before his master; a peaceful man, he must submit to the continuation of insensate slaughter; a highly gifted intellectual, he has had to pursue a policy of insane stupidity. Twenty-five years ago a professor of the University of Munich, Dr. Quidde, compared the Kaiser to Caligula. The analogy ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... town, and townspeople going out to the country.... And children who insulted one another shrilly.... But the white horse plodded on. On a stretch of level road he passed a pair talking, noting casually that the woman was a lady from her carriage, and from his threatening cringe that the man was a cad. Italian riff-raff ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... glint in his eye, and was ready to go out of his way hunting trouble. Totally dissatisfied with any answer I could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... Psyche plunging in the sun; Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge; And standing somewhat widely, like to one More used to "Boot and Saddle" than to cringe ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... therefore 'twas, to gall thee, that I named him. That thing, that nothing, but a cringe and smile; That woman, but more daubed; or, if a man, Corrupted ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... changed them, they say in a wonderful way, To toys, for his Christmas cheer. The big dolls stare with a goblin air, The small ones cringe with fear. ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson

... to the rum power in America. That is the god I mean. The most heartless, depraved monopoly on earth, yet men and governments grovel in the dust at its feet and cringe like dogs ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... letter of March 25, 1911, to Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me, please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with his home life that it is hard to see ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... disliking me; to the baffling ones who remain enthusiastically ignorant of my existence; to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with laughing at them); to the anointed ones who identify their ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht

... coward." The woman's cheeks flamed red. "Some men shut their eyes and cringe when there comes a flash of lightning. But that don't make them cowards. He might have been frightened at the time, and not known what he was doing, but he is not a coward. I guess I know that as well as anybody can tell me. He is my boy—my only child. ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... which, for more than seven years has sought our destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from America; for the criminal ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... on his career of international madness and prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... of this was not apparent. Harwood had assumed on general principles that the Honorable Isaac Pettit, of the "Fraser County Democrat," was an humble and obedient servant of the Honorable Morton Bassett, and would cringe at the mention of his name. To be sure, Mr. Pettit had said nothing to disturb this belief; but neither had the editor manifested that meek submission for which the reporter had been prepared. The editor's Gargantuan girth trembled again. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... in the first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of psychomania, whereof the high priest is one Beverley, a plausible ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (Sludge the Medium, without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see— Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there liv'd Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, Helpers and friends ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... hard usage. Perhaps her husband might have had mercy on her, but they were both cowed by the pitiless brute of a step-son, whose only view was to goad her into driving their profitable traffic to her last gasp. But there was no outbreak between them and Harold. The father's nature was to cringe and fawn, and the son estimated those thews and muscles too well to gratify his hatred by open provocation, and was only surly and dogged, keeping himself almost entirely out of the way. Alice wanted nothing but to look at ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... looks," he was saying. "I desire them up yonder to think that I abuse you. Look as a man would who were being abused. Cringe or snarl, but listen. Do you remember once when as lads we swam together from Penarrow to ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... appealed to her to leave the scene she seemed not to hear him. She only stood and stared at the exhausted man until he could bear it no longer and, hiding his face in his hands, he began to shiver and cringe and sob. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake at the Hospice, and that water did not ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... slave, when Freedom smiling stands, To strike the gyves from of his fettered hands? Who'd be a slave, and cringe, and bow the knee, And kiss the hand that steals his liberty? Behold the bird that flits from bough to bough; What though at times the wintry blasts may blow,— Happier it feels, half frozen in its nest, Than caged, though fed and fondled and caressed. 'Tis said, 'on Briton's shore ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... England, in the majesty of her State, in the sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and their kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To these,—men who meddled with affairs of State,—who took, even at such a time, the State to be their business,—must address themselves; for these were the councils in which England's peace and war were settled then, and the Tribune could enter them only in disguise. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... said Mr. Starkweather, and interrupted himself long enough to kiss her, "I'll say Henry's got a darned sight better judgment 'n you have.... Go on and blush. Make a good job of it. Ashamed of yourself? So 'm I. Sit down there and cringe. You too, Henry." He himself remained on his feet. "Funny thing," he said, after a pause. "Only chance I ever had to get married myself was somethin' like this is—oh, I wasn't a gilt loafer, like Henry is; I was workin' sixteen hours a ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... the man to slink away like a whipped dog—for the mean are ever the first to cringe—my friend turned from the window. Meeting my eyes as he went back to his seat, he laughed. 'Well,' he ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... or a German would be incapable of envisaging and understanding all its peculiarities and differences, for his tone in speaking to a millionaire differs but little from that which he employs towards a small tobacconist—and that in spite of the circumstance that he is accustomed to cringe before the former. With us, however, things are different. In Russian society there exist clever folk who can speak in one manner to a landowner possessed of two hundred peasant souls, and in another to a landowner possessed of three hundred, and in another to a landowner possessed of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... sort of a man father is," replied Rufe. "Peakslow would have found out, if he had drawn a bead on you. How quick he stopped, and changed countenance! He can govern his temper when he finds he must; and he can cringe and crawl when he sees it's for his interest. Think of his asking you at last,—after you had got your horse in spite of him, and at the risk of your life,—think of his begging you to give ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... of Anathoth, and the murder in your hearts. Ye that have worshipped the shameful thing and burned incense to Baal—shall I cringe that ye devise against me, or not rather pray to the Lord of Hosts, 'Let me see Thy vengeance on them'? And He answereth, 'I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... front of us half a dozen sets of false teeth, arranged in a horrid circle around a cigar-box full of extracted molars such as made one cringe, grinned bitingly out of a glass case before the dentist's office door. The effect was of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... on afterward," replied Mr. Reed, with a stunned look; but in an instant, he turned his eyes full upon Slade, causing the miserable creature to cringe ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... cringe all over, but I couldn't deny it, for so far as I knew Florence Lloyd, Parmalee's words ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... Thetis' wat'ry lap Hastens in prone career, with friends select Swiftly we hie to Devil,* young or old, *[Footnote: The Devil's Tavern, Temple Bar.] Jocund and boon; where at the entrance stands A stripling, who with scrapes and humil cringe Greets us in winning speech, and accent bland: With lightest bound, and safe unerring step, He skips before, and nimbly climbs the stairs. Melampus thus, panting with lolling tongue, And wagging tail, gambols and frisks before His sequent lord, from pensive ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... gibe germ tinge edge urge huge serge judge singe ledge large barge fudge lodge dodge ridge cringe lunge budge hedge badge sledge nudge wedge fringe range bridge merge grudge trudge mange smudge charge ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... had been greatly soured by the infamous treatment of her poor mother, and, conceiving that this said young Dutch upstart had not paid her mother proper respect and attention, but that he was more disposed to fawn and cringe to the will of her father, it is said that she dismissed him from her presence, and peremptorily refused to marry him. This drove her Royal Papa into a great passion, and our magnanimous Prince Regent went suddenly to Warwick ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... of the decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious authority to his countenance. He was tall ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... I neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be its master; I prefer to go my own way alone . ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... could flash as of old; the voice would presently once more ring harsh and servant and equal alike would cringe before him; for still he held half Moscow in the iron grip of his terrible omniscience. But Ivan noted the color of his hair—that dead white that is not the snow of years but the ashen colorlessness borne of continuous ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... to gain a little fame, And have each rascal that prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. "Why bides he not in Town With his blond lovelock and wench-luring ways— There runs his fox! What foul fiend ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd? Why search for delight, in ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... misfortune of mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get thee ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... in his broad, white-swathed palm and pressed it fervently, regardless of the pain which would have caused him to cringe if engaged ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... of being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... it was who ordered our seizure. I have always been on good terms with him, and must try and induce him not to detain us. It will not do, however, to approach him on horseback. We must show him some respect, though we need not bow and cringe as that ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... him; at least she would not crouch and cringe and hide her eyes. She would watch him as he rode, watch him as he fought, watch him to the end even though ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... him. Stephen felt him cringe. Directly he felt something else. It was a cold hand groping to find his own. The whole thing was queer, uncanny, and he was glad when ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly, while his breath came quick and short: "And where do the talkers, the parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters' feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except what is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... them the self-evident truth that all men were born free and equal, that the master, with his white skin, was in the sight of God no whit better than his black slaves, and that for himself he would not cringe like that to ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... spirits shall not cringe and grovel, Stooping lowly to a low thoughts door, As if Heaven were straitened to a hovel, All its star-worlds set to rise no more, And our genius had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... born under a fortunate star! He had written a great deal in his day—and he had not succeeded in seeing a single one of his compositions published; he had not understood how to set about the matter in the proper way, to cringe opportunely, to bustle at the right moment. Once, long, long ago, one of his admirers and friends, also a German and also poor, had published two of his sonatas at his own expense,—and the whole edition remained in the cellars of the musical shops; they had vanished dully, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the Law,—"His is the Hand that wounds; His is the Hand that heals," and so forth. As soon as they had ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... known, is a manly and very independent personage. As a rule his master is more afraid of him than he is of his master. Yet, according to the picture drawn of him by the Socialists, he is a timorous, cowardly, whining, pitiful creature who has to cringe ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... least address their flatteries to the girls whom they are eager to marry, whereas the Greek and Roman poets sought merely to beguile a class of women whose charms were for sale to anyone. One of these profligate men might cringe and wail and cajole, to gain the good will of a capricious courtesan, but he never dreamed of bending his knees to win the honest love of the maid he took to be his wife (that he might have male offspring.) Roman love was not romantic, nor was ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... things as I am telling leaves marks upon the flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let me go to school, now—But ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... to each other. The very breath each drew was a challenge and a menace to the other. Their hate bound them together as love could never bind. Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet. And Batard—Leclere knew what was in Batard's mind, and more than once had read it in Batard's eyes. And so clearly had he read, that when Batard was at his back, he made it a point to glance often over ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... to Sym as he walked afield Deep thoughts of the world and the folk of Gosh. He saw the idols to which they kneeled; He marked them cringe to the name of Splosli. Is it meet," he asked, "that a soul should crawl To a purple robe or a gilded chair?" But his father walked to the garden's wall And stooped to a ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men, gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well might a stuffed ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... hiding place in a crotch of the spruce Neewa looked down on the first great tragedy of his life, and the advent of man. The two-legged beast made him cringe deeper into his refuge, and his little heart was near breaking with the terror that had seized upon him. He did not reason. It was by no miracle of mental process that he knew something terrible had happened, and that this tall, two-legged creature was the cause of it. ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... done to social institutions, may at one time have mingled with the lovers' remorse and the lovers' temptations,—had now been completely forgotten. We have seen how, more than once, love, however self-restrained, had induced Alfieri to put aside all his Republican sternness and truthfulness, and to cringe before people whom he thoroughly despised; we cannot easily forget that ignominious stroking of the Brutus poet's cheek by Pope Pius VI. We shall now see how this peculiar sort of Roman and stoical virtue, cultivated ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... hestitating. Perhaps, too, I will give him shelter, a kindness never to be despised. A moment ago, before I whistled, this dog was tranquil and happy in the rain. Now he has changed. He turns fully around and approaches me, a slight cringe in his walk. The tranquillity has left him. At the sound of my whistle he has grown suddenly tired and lonely and the night and rain no longer lure him. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd, No politics disturb their mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport, 25 Nor know who's in or out at court; They never to the levee go To treat as dearest friend, a foe; They never importune his grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place; 30 Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for B—b. Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Pater-Noster-Row; No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, 35 No pick-pockets, or poetasters, Are known to honest quadrupeds; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... incidentally, but purposely. We have met here to show the world that times have changed, that the earth revolves, and to prove to ourselves in an impressive and undeniable way that the power of superstition is crippled, and at last Science and Free Speech need no longer cringe and crawl. We respect the Church for what she is, but our manhood must now realize that it is no longer the slave and tool of entrenched force and power that abrogates to itself the name ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... young," he said, "O sister; thou wert called a mighty queen When the nurses first upraised thee and first thy body was seen: If thou bide with these toiling women when a great king bids thee to wife, Then first is it seen of the Niblungs that they cringe and cower from strife: By the deeds of the Golden Sigurd I charge thee hinder us not, When the Norns have dight the way-beasts, and our hearts for the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... their blasphemy made him cringe. He wrapped the little broken body tighter in his arms. Was she, then, what she was by a loving God's decree? He kissed her hair and groaned in righteous anger. Did that Outcast Emperor dare call himself the representative of God on earth, and thereupon urge his menials to do evil for ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... bravado had vanished from the farmer by now. He seemed to fairly cringe before the girl. Afterwards the boys learned that there was good reason for this, since her father was Mayor Stephens, the richest man in Hazenhurst, and the farmer a tenant who was forever behind in his rents, and heavily in the debt of ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his due, and he would answer condescendingly, 'It is good. Peter ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... the shout is taken up by undergraduates, and tradesmen, and horse-dealers, and cricket-cads, and dog-fanciers 'Come to us, and us, and us, and we will be your toadies!' Let them; let them toady and cringe to their precious idols, till they bring this noble old place down about their ears. Down it will come, down it must come, for down it ought to come, if it can find nothing better to worship than rank, money, and intellect. But to live in the place and love it too, and to see all this going ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... stout-hearted heroes who will not fail me in the fray. These valiant souls have chosen me their lord. With such peers one may ponder counsel, and gain a following. Devoted are these friends and faithful-hearted; and I may be their lord and rule this realm. It seemeth no wise right to me that I should cringe a whit to God for any good. I ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... 630 And Beowulf spake forth, the Ecgtheow's bairn: E'en that in mind had I when up on holm strode I, And in sea-boat sat down with a band of my men, That for once and for all the will of your people Would I set me to work, or on slaughter-field cringe Fast in grip of the fiend; yea and now shall I frame The valour of earl-folk, or else be abiding The day of mine end, here down in the mead-hall. To the wife those his words well liking they were, The big ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... despicable race, Like wand'ring Arabs shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid, And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, To Madam May'ress, or his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... this new attitude her face was in complete shadow, Perris felt her eyes burning out at him. His dismissal was at hand, he knew, and then the carelessly defiant speech which was forming in his throat died away. Sick at heart, he realized that he must cringe under the hand which was about to strike and be humble under the very eye of Hervey. He was no longer free and the chain which held him was the conviction that he could never be happy until he had met and conquered wild Alcatraz, that he was as incomplete as a holster without a gun ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... I distinctly saw him cringe at my shot," hotly said another. "There's always a peculiar look a tiger has when he gets his death-wound: it's unmistakable when you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... surely, but it takes two to make a bargain. I think I know just the sort of people mamma and sisters are. He told me she read him a lecture every time he danced twice with a poor girl, and now I am expected to walk into the same trap, and cringe to her ladyship, for the sin of being poor. I guess not! I'll teach school till I die first, and he can think of me as having a 'slab of granite so gray' ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... her that this trial of her courage and self-control was not without one blessed result. He would rest for several days in the pleasure of what he had done or thought he had done. She need not cringe before that image of Dread for two, three days at least. Meanwhile, he would grow strong in body, and she, perhaps, in spirit. Only one precaution she must take. No hint of Mr. Challoner's presence in town must reach him. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... in itself. But when I look on the world at large, when I see of what poor stuff those men are made who contrive to uphold their rule and what sort of antagonists we are likely to find in them, then I can only feel how disgraceful it would be to cringe before them and not to face them myself and try conclusions with them on the field. All of them, I perceive," he added, "beginning with our own friends here, hold to it that the ruler should only differ from his subjects by the splendour of his banquets, the wealth of ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... seemed to reach down and touch the very tops of the trees. The reddish soil of the fields grew dark under the continuous downpour; the roads, winding deep between the mudwalls and the fences of the orchards, were changed to rushing streams. The weeping orange-trees seemed to shrink and cringe under the deluge, as if in aggrieved protest at the sudden anger of that kindly, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... burden forth to drink? You herd your oxen, each one in his stall? You whip and goad until they heed your call? You own, and use? Are these your cattle? Think! Although the while they cringe to you and shrink. And watch their fate in your least finger fall, Mistake not, lest they rise and ravage all, And your vast piled-up ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard

... there could be no right understanding betwixt prince and people, lord and servant, tutor and pupil, friend and friend, man and wife, buyer and seller, or any persons however otherwise related, if they did not cowardly put up small abuses, sneakingly cringe and submit, or after all fawningly scratch and flatter each other. This you will say is much, but you shall yet hear what is more; tell me then, can any one love another that first hates himself? Is it likely any one should agree with ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... upon that action, sorrowfully considering it. "I thought it very affable of him to shake hands," he said, "but he had a very final way of doing it. And, besides, I didn't care to make a tale of my private affairs, and seem to cringe. I didn't ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... such blundering, well-meant assistance as her mother could give her. She had found out that the world cannot pause to help the stricken, or to give a hand to the fallen, but that it always has leisure to cringe and make way for ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... Huntington, a son of somebody at the financial head of things. While sacrificing none of his steady self-reliance or self-respect, Ben Tillson decided to treat his new fireman, assistant to the old, with all due civility. He would cringe or kowtow to no one, but, like the sturdy citizen he was, Ben deemed it wise to keep on the good side of the powers. It was necessary, however, that the new-comer should understand who was boss on that engine, and even as they stood waiting at the Chimney ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... seek renown in arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... man of two characters—one for public, one for private life. His manners to his superiors, and generally to his equals, were bland and insinuating; to his inferiors he was overbearing, haughty, and severe, except when he had some particular point to carry, and then he could cringe to and fawn upon the vilest. He had a peculiar method of entering into men's hearts, and worming from each whatever best suited his purpose; but the principle upon which he invariably acted, was, to extract the honey from the rose, and then scatter ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than [-pleased-] {be blessed} with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do not send us ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand

... laird? My eyes are na gude.—Eh, laird, I remember the sermons of your grandfather, Gawin Elliot! Aye, aye! he was a lion against sinners! I hae seen them cringe!... It is the ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... week the boys put up with the cruelty of their tutor, who at once took an immense dislike to them on finding that they did not, like the other boys, cringe before him, and that no trashing could extract a cry ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... in their very midst, a ghastly heap of mangled flesh and shattered limbs were scattered to right and left. Two unhappy lads were blown to unrecognisable fragments. No words can convey the heart-rending cries of those whose bodies cringe and writhe from the hell-hot agony of searing shrapnel. There is an unmistakable appeal for pity that stirs the depth of feeling until a wild frenzy to right matters sends Berserk passion to the brain. Oh, you German ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... heroes seek renown to arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... match hedge sward bought stitch hatch ledge swarm bright fitch latch wedge thwart plight hitch patch fledge bilge budge fosse breadth twinge bridge judge thong breast print ridge drudge notch cleanse fling hinge grudge blotch friend string cringe plunge prompt ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... strained and overworked compared to the few basking in idleness, dying from rich living; and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits and perverse inclinations, a sort of artificial and supplementary ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... you to your Business, and I to mine. [Speaks as the rest go out. Let the dull trading Fool by Business live, Statesmen by Plots; the Courtier cringe to thrive; The Fop of Noise and Wealth be cullied on, And purchase no one Joy by being undone, Whilst I by nobler careless ways advance, Since Love and Fortune are acquir'd ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... slave kotoo; You love not such display; Let courtiers cringe and creatures "boo." 'Tis not our English way, My Prince, 'Tis not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various

... they had marched a distance unknown to him, although it seemed long, they commenced to beat their drum, and raise the scalp halloo. The next village was near; they were calling for the gauntlet, and the stake. This made his flesh cringe, and pricked him to action. Now, or never! With a great spring and a wild whoop he bolted ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... "Ay! quail and cringe and crook the supple knee, And beg thy life of me, thine enemy, Whom thou, a moment since, didst doom to death. I will not breathe suspicion's lightest breath Against thy vaunted fame: and even though Before all men thou'st ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... haughty, resolute, zealous about their genealogies; extremely sober, ready to promise everything and do nothing, vindictive and highly suspicious of a stranger's intentions. Their bearing towards the Christian, whom they call the infidel, is full of contempt. They know no gratitude, and they would not cringe to the greatest Christian potentate. They are very long-suffering in adversity, hesitating in attack, and the bravest of the brave in defence. They disdain work as degrading and only a fit occupation ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... was not clever; she was simple and childish, with no complexity of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliette. She would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her with discovery, and through her very terror shame ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... night had overcome all his boasted self-control, his gambler's coolness, and the real underlying brutality of his nature demanded expression. He yearned to crush, and hurt something—something that would cringe before him. I ventured to raise my head cautiously, so as to gain a glimpse of the man, and was surprised to note the change in his face. It was as though he had removed a mask. Heretofore, always holding the winning hand, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... nor hear any melting apostrophies. Marius was not mouthing by the ruins of Carthage, nor even Rachel weeping for her Hebrew children. But there were on every hand manifestations of adherence to the Southern cause, except among a few males who feared unutterable things, and were disposed to cringe and prevaricate. The women were not generally handsome; their face was indolent, their dress slovenly, and their manner embarrassed. They lopped off the beginnings and the ends of their sentences, generally commencing with a verb, as thus: "Told soldiers not to carr' off ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... Assessed Taxes on inhabited houses, windows, male servants, horses, carriages, etc. The trebling of these imposts took the House by surprise, and drew from Tierney, now, in the absence of Fox, the leader of Opposition, the taunt that Pitt had to cringe to the Bank for help. A few days later Pitt explained that the triple duty would fall only upon those who already paid L3 or more on that score. If the sum paid were less than L1 it would be halved. Those who paid L3 or ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... her with mingled anger and fascination. Here was certainly a new species of woman! Never before had any teacher at William Penn failed to cringe to his authority as ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... tend to do nothing in the days of the gospel but to find out how to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day, was by God brought so down, and laid so low at last, that he could crouch, and cringe, and beg for one small drop of water to cool his tongue—a thing, that but a little before he would have thought scorn to have done, when he also thought scorn to stoop to the grace and mercy of the gospel (Luke 16:19,24). But God was resolved to break his spirit, and the pride ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in Nueva Cordoba," went on the Spaniard, "play the earthquake and the wave—then sail away, sail away, marauders! and leave the fortress virgin, and the treasure no lighter by one piece, and Luiz de Guardiola to find a day when English dogs shall cringe before him!" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... The creature stood leering at me over his shoulder, and I knew he'd been using threats because my father, himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head—in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more—twisting the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition," she gave a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... 'Remember Evelyn!' That startled the old man even more than the sight on the floor had done. He turned round, and I saw his fist rise as if against some menacing intruder, but it quickly fell again as his eyes encountered the picture which hung before him, and with a cringe painful to see in one of his years, he sidled back till he reached the doorway. Here he paused a minute to give another look at the man outstretched at his feet, and ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... surging through my mind came one after another the explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Denison seemed almost to cringe in the chair, weak already ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... she shouted. "You can lie in the dock when you stand there and tell them you never murdered Douglas Romilly! That makes you cringe, doesn't it? I don't want to make a scene, but the woman you're in love with had better hear what I have to say. Are you going to give me back ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to myself, when night comes round me, And the soft chain of thought has bound me, I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing— You owe no mortal man a shilling— You never cringe for star or garter, You're much too wise to be a martyr— And since you must, be food for vermin, You don't feel much desire for ermine!" Wisdom is a mine, no doubt, If one can but find it out— But whate'er I think or say, I'm an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. Smoor, smother. Smothe, vapor. Snaw, snow. Snell, bitter. Snooded, bound up with a fillet. Snool, cringe. Solan, gannet. Soote, sweet. Souter, cobbler. Spak, spoke. Spean, wean. Speel, climb. Spier, ask, inquire. Spraing, stripe. Sprattle, scramble. Spreckled, speckled. Spryte, spirit. Squattle, squat. Stacher, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum



Words linked to "Cringe" :   funk, creep, crawl, shrink back, wince, retract, quail, squinch, move, flinch, flex, cower, recoil, grovel, shrink, bend, fawn



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