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Execrable   Listen
adjective
Execrable  adj.  Deserving to be execrated; accursed; damnable; detestable; abominable; as, an execrable wretch. "Execrable pride."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Execrable" Quotes from Famous Books



... opposite of the Parisienne. If you leave general effects, and come to pull her dress to pieces, you find that the metal is only electro, to whatever rank of life she may belong. The general appearance may be pleasing, but in detail she is execrable. Not but that the materials of her dress are rich enough, so that my electro simile will hardly hold water; but money does not make the artist. Let us begin with the bonnet. Walk down Collins Street at the time of the block on Saturday, and I doubt whether you can count half a dozen ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... and religion; being at all times ready to bind themselves by an oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had slain the enemy of their nation or of their God. This was the school which supplied that execrable faction, who added tenfold to the miseries of Jerusalem in the day of her visitation, and who contributed more than all the legions of Rome to realize the bitterness of the curse which was poured ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... Goldney was, in his private character, esteemed a very worthy man; but when he gave way to the baleful system of factious politics, he became as great a tool, and as blind a bigot to the over-ruling power of intimidation, as any one of the execrable gang that composed the Members of the White Lion Club. "But list! O list!" Amiable as Mr. Goldney is, he could not resist the temptation of coming to Ilchester, out of his own County of Gloucester, forty miles, to have a peep ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... Kasvin, halfway to Tehran, over the execrable road which leads from Resht. For the first forty miles the landscape was lovely from wooded slopes, green growth and clear running water. The post-houses are just as they were—ill-provided, and affording ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... in England; boots and shoes, the former of which are worn chiefly, of Buenos Ayres make; and ready-made garments of linen and poor cloths. The imported liquors and articles of food are principally a small quantity of sugar, lard, wine of an execrable quality, and Hamburg gin, together with a few boxes of candles and some oil and soap. To this list of imports must be added the inevitable Chinese fire-crackers, without which noisy accessories no Paraguayan holiday would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... shameless villain, execrable wretch, Monster of nature, degenerate miscreant! Who ever knew or heard so vile an oath Vilely pronounc'd[301] by such a damned slave? Have I such monstrous vipers in my land, That with their very breaths infect the air? Say, Dunstan, hast ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... reasons to wish you may: for I have just made an acquaintance with one who knows a vast deal of his private history. The man is really a villain, my dear! an execrable one! if all be true that I have heard! And yet I am promised other particulars. I do assure you, my dear friend, that, had he a dozen lives, he might have forfeited them all, and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... voting and eligibility; but eligibility was restricted still farther. Ineligible were to be all atheistic persons, scoffers at Religion, unbelievers in the divine authority of the Bible, or other execrable heretics, all profaners of the Lord's Day, all habitual drunkards or swearers, and all who had married Roman Catholics or allowed their children to marry such. For the rest, all persons of the voting sex, over the age of twenty-one, and "of known integrity, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... becoming more and more excited; "this crime more execrable than an assassination! this crime which dishonors my name forever, and entails upon ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... evidently borrowed from their uncultivated neighbors beyond the Dasht-i-na-oomid, is the execrable practice of chewing snuff. Almost every man carries a supply of coarse snuff in a little sheepskin wallet or dried bladder; at short intervals he rubs a pinch of this villainous stuff all over his teeth and gums and deposits a second ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defense. Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measures recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of this Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to informing you that I shall—unless in your wisdom ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... called Vin Huet—and is the last wine which a traveller will be disposed to ask for. When Henry IV. passed through the town, he could not conceive why such excellent grapes should produce such execrable wine. I owe this intelligence ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... Field had execrable taste in dress and he knew it. Consequently he enjoyed presenting neckties to his friends. His biographer, Slason Thompson, who worked in the same newspaper office, separated only by a low thin ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... opposed to religion." [48] And as far as they made any distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,—though he must have heard the name of Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... the peacemakers, for they shall inherit a black eye (Lawson). Shakespeare was ever rough on poets—but stay! Consider that this great world of Rome and all the men and women in it were created by a "jingling fool" and a master of bad—not to say execrable—rhymes, and his name was William Shakespeare. You need to sit down and think ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... the mobs of cattle, the maimed and unfit men; when the fine show of the fighters was out of sight. Plainly if a curse of any real value was to be pronounced it must be by a prophet who saw much that was execrable, little that ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... principal thing, but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but, of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst, and villainies acted under the cloak of religion the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not itself carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... dark, how treacherous, how impious soever it may be: a certain sign that there are some remains of religion left in the human mind, even after every moral sentiment hath abandoned it; and that the most execrable ruffian finds means to quiet the suggestions of his conscience, by some reversionary ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... avec la justice au pied de la lettre. Nobody doubts of her felony; the only debate in conversation is, whether she can have the benefit of her clergy. Some think she will turn Papist. All expect some untimely death. C'est un execrable personage que celui que (sic) ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... his uncle and others, undertakes to make away with the regent, when a convenient opportunity offered itself: He first lay in wait for him at Glasgow, and then at Stirling, but both failed him; after which, he thought Linlithgow the most proper place for perpetrating that execrable deed; his uncle had a house near the regent's, in which he concealed himself, that he might be in readiness for the assassination. Of this design the regent got intelligence likewise, but paid not that regard to the danger he was exposed ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... part in all the excesses and all the aberrations of the human passions; thus it was, in fine, that the national spirit became predisposed to the persecution of the Jews, Mahometans, and Protestants, by means of that execrable ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... the transportation thither, . . . determined to keep open a market where white men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... Gods! By heaven, I would rather Embrue my arms, up to my very shoulders, In the dear entrails of the best of fathers, Than offer at the execrable act Of damned incest: therefore ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... as in contempt of common humanity, delivered up above twenty men of the garrison to the Indians in lieu of the same number they had lost during the siege; and in all probability these miserable captives were put to death by those barbarians, with the most excruciating tortures, according to the execrable custom of the country. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... the people who surrounded that strange host as he told the story of his evil days were a curious spectacle. Some seemed disgusted, especially Monpavon. That display of old rags seemed to him in execrable taste, and to denote utter lack of breeding. Cardailhac, that sceptic and man of refined taste, a foe to all emotional scenes, sat with staring eyes and as if hypnotized, cutting a piece of fruit with the end of his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... warm spring mornings when vital energies flag, that Mr. and Mrs. Vincent toiled up the third flight of stairs; the halls filled with execrable odours of fried ham and cheap coffee; each busy with their own thoughts, possibly of green fields, apple-blossoms, spring violets, tables with damask and silver, cool, inviting rooms, and other equally tantalising suggestions. Faith, at ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes should be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under her face. And yet refusing to return without me, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... nice little detached house in the Brompton neighbourhood, do you? Most of my old theatrical friends live about there—a detached house, mind! The fact is, I have taken to the violin lately (I wonder what I shall take to next?); Mrs. Ralph accompanies me on the pianoforte; and we might be an execrable nuisance to very near neighbours—that's all! You don't know of a house? Never mind; I can go to an agent, or something of that sort. Clara shall know to-night that we are moving prosperously, if I can only give the worthiest creature ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... par &c. (imperfect) 651; illcontrived, ill-conditioned; wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable; pitiful, pitiable, woeful &c. (painful) 830. evil, wrong; depraved &c. 945; shocking; reprehensible &c. (disapprove) 932. hateful, hateful as a toad; abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded; damned, damnable; infernal; diabolic &c. (malevolent) 907. unadvisable &c. (inexpedient) 647; unprofitable &c. (useless) 645; incompetent &c. (unskillful) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... was hired; but he granted a tiger very graciously. Madame Schontz was not the least grateful for this munificence; she knew the motive of her Arthur's conduct, and recognized the calculations of the male rat. Sick of living at a restaurant, where the fare is usually execrable, and where the least little gourmet dinner costs sixty francs for one, and two hundred francs if you invite three friends, Rochefide offered Madame Schontz forty francs a day for his dinner and that of a friend, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... OF DRUNKENKESS.—To what are we to ascribe the prevalence of this detestable vice amongst us! Many causes might be plausibly assigned for it, and one of them is our execrable cookery. The demon of drunkenness inhabits the stomach. From that "vasty deep" it calls for its appropriate offerings. But the demon may be appeased by other agents than alcohol. A well-cooked, warmed, nutritious meal ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... inferiority to Edward,—to sympathize with the youth's horror at the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin says in his preface, "a hero—what do I say?—a giant!—to the loving, timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, la Franaise) "I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity can hardly be controlled. It seems ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... comradeship. This living, ancestral bond (not of love or fear, but strictly of marriage) has been twice expressed splendidly in literature. The man's incurable sense of the mother in his lawful wife was uttered by Browning in one of his two or three truly shattering lines of genius, when he makes the execrable Guido fall back finally upon the fact of marriage and the wife whom he ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... a more cruel thing supervened. The sight of Caroline's lifeless form, instead of pity or remorse, roused all the innate furies that belonged to the execrable race of La Corriveau. The blood of generations of poisoners and assassins boiled and rioted in her veins. The spirits of Beatrice Spara and of La Voisin inspired her with new fury. She was at this moment like a pantheress that has brought down ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... my task, having proofs, etc., to correct, and being called early to walk with the ladies. I have gained three leaves in the two following days, so I cannot blame myself. Sat cito si sat bene. Sat boni I am sure—I may say—a truly execrable pun that; hope no ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... able to tell them so.... Adieu my dearest friend.' He calls Johnson 'the best of friends, to whom I stand indebted for all the little virtue and knowledge that I have.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'I think, but absolute want can force me to continue where I am.' Jamaica he calls 'this execrable region.' Hawkins (Life, p. 235) says that 'Bathurst, before leaving England, confessed to Johnson that in the course of ten years' exercise of his faculty he had never opened his hand to more than one ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the delight of spending, rather than the joy of possessing, which made them go from one shop to another in search of things they could carry hack to the line—that and the lure of girls behind the counters, laughing, bright-eyed girls who understood their execrable French, even English spoken with a Glasgow accent, and were pleased to flirt for five minutes with any group of young fighting-men—who broke into roars of laughter at the gallantry of some Don Juan among them with the gift of audacity, and paid outrageous prices for the privilege of stammering ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... can scarcely believe what unworthy, base, execrable and abominable things the holy Apostolical See, which is the pivot upon which the whole Catholic Church revolves, was forced to endure, when princes of the age, though Christians, arrogated to themselves the election of ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... she cried, and quite against her will tears of wrath and of disappointment rose to her eyes. "What villainy! what odious, execrable treachery!" ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... out a letter of application, couched in admirable business language, which Paul copied, with variations. The boy's handwriting was execrable, so that William, who did all things well, got ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... still remained a trusted adviser, and he rendered splendid service at a dangerous crisis. In spite of the fact that the Jay treaty had been ratified by the Senate in June, 1795, it was an issue in the Fall elections that year. Jefferson held that the treaty was an "execrable thing," an "infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of alliance between England and the Anglo-men of this country against the Legislature and the people of the United States." Giles, who had been in close consultation ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... six days out on the broken sea-ice were full of incident. The weather was gloriously sunny till the 13th, during which time the sledge had to be dragged through a forest of pinnacles and over areas of soft, sticky slush which made the runners execrable for hours. Ponds of open water, by which basked a few Weddell seals, became a familiar sight. We tried to maintain a south-easterly course for the coast, but miles were wasted in the tortuous maze of ice—"a wildering Theban ruin of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... difficult to assimilate the German girls to American customs. They are not apt to learn, and great patience is required in teaching them. The virtues of order and cleanliness seem to be not only rare in them, but exceedingly difficult to graft upon them. Their cooking, especially, is generally execrable. But once properly trained, they make the best of servants. They are generally contented, almost always cheerful and good tempered, and have little of that irritating pertness and 'independence' so characteristic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... then, that the greatest power is not able to confer even upon your God Himself the right to be unjust to the vilest of His creatures. A despot is not a God. A God who arrogates to Himself the right to do evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for men. He ought to be an execrable object in their eyes. Is it not strange that, in order to justify Divinity, they made of Him the most unjust of beings? As soon as we complain of His conduct, they think to silence us by claiming that God is the Master; which signifies that God, being the strongest, ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... concluded. The Fox had brought a cargo of very miscellaneous articles, consisting of gorgeously coloured calicoes of patterns such as to attract the savage taste—firearms, powder and shot, axes, knives, other articles of ironware, and no small amount of execrable rum and other spirits. The skipper invited the natives on board, and took good care to ply them with liquor before he commenced trading. The chief and his people had stores collected for the purpose, consisting of birds of paradise, and monkey skins, pearls, various ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... speaking bought the material for a silk dress from me to-day, and she undertook to make up the bill, but failed to do so. I am certain I should have had no difficulty in reckoning it when I was a mere child, eight years of age; and though she appeared to be so estimable young lady, her English was execrable and her slang phrases offensive to cultivated ears. I concluded if she had only been thoroughly taught in one of our common schools, she would have ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... four-cornered town with 1,000 inhabitants, following a system of production and consumption in common, but not with full equality; carrying on both agriculture and other business. A principal feature here is an entirely new system of education. The author says that man has hitherto been the slave of an execrable trinity: positive religion, personal property and indissoluble ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... could, and explained, by the help of my handkerchief displayed, how it was driven forward by the wind. That upon a quarrel among us, I was set on shore on this coast, where I walked forward, without knowing whither, till he delivered me from the persecution of those execrable Yahoos." He asked me, "who made the ship, and how it was possible that the Houyhnhnms of my country would leave it to the management of brutes?" My answer was, "that I durst proceed no further in ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... orator could do justice to the scene which Moses depicts in one word: "Cain rose up against his brother?" Many descriptions of cruelty are to be found on every hand, but could any be painted as more atrocious and execrable than is the case here? "He rose up against his brother," Moses writes. It is as if he had said, Cain rose up against Abel, the only brother he had, with whom he had been brought up and with whom he had lived to that day. But not only the relationship ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... there be any such, mine those charms, and mine that fountain that not only restores departed youth but, which is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth or more execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you are indebted to me, that have retained so great a good and shut ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... and similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... questions of the human reason, was irrepressible. This he did with an air of matured conviction and with the impact of conscious moral authority, but in terms as strikingly eccentric as the thoughts were lofty and inspiring, and in execrable French, the declaimer being known as minus habens in his studies and utterly incapable. All this was the very make-up of folly; and Brother Hecker was no doubt thought a fool. But how holy a fool he was his superiors soon discovered. We find the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... against Lovers, and into which he introduced, with grotesque effect, the characters of Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado about Nothing. But it is more to Pepys's credit that he bestowed a very qualified approval on an execrable adaptation by the actor Lacy of The Taming of the Shrew. Here the hero, Petruchio, is overshadowed by a new character, Sawney, his Scottish servant, who speaks an unintelligible patois. "It hath some very good pieces in it," writes ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... and sank. For here were plots, possibly dangers, most certainly trepidations. He turned his back as though he had seen nothing, and constraining himself to a slow pace walked towards the door of the villa. But the hawker was now at his side, whining in execrable German and a strong French accent the remarkable value of his wares. There were samplers most exquisitely worked, jewels for the most noble gentleman's honoured sweetheart, and purses which emperors would ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... cards. Soon after the humour changed, and games of chance came into vogue—to the ruin of many considerable families: this was likewise very destructive to health, for besides the various violent passions it excited, whole nights were spent at this execrable amusement. The worst of all was that card-playing, which the court had taken from the army, soon spread from the court into the city, and from the city pervaded the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... had once belonged to these lovefeasts, should tell a deliberate falsehood that the Christians perpetrated these abominable vices, and that other persons in France, who had also been connected with these feasts, should falsely state that the Christians were guilty of the very same execrable crimes? There was no collusion or connection whatever between these parties, and in making their statements, they could have no self-interested motive. They lived in different countries, they did not make their statements within twenty years of the same time, and by making ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... think I've understood from you that your occupations have been—a—commercial? There's a danger in that, you know; but it's the way you have escaped that strikes us. Excuse me if my little compliment seems in execrable taste; fortunately my wife doesn't hear me. What I mean is that you might have been—a—what I was mentioning just now. The whole American world was in a conspiracy to make you so. But you resisted, you've ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... They continue singular and alone, without making parties, or forming sects: the whole weight of the public authority falls upon them; a price is set upon their heads; whilst they are universally regarded as execrable persons, the bane of civil society, with whom it is criminal to have any ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... pedestrian. The windows, on a level with the eyes of the passer-by, are draped with cheap lace curtains. The broad expanse of cotton wadding between the double windows is decorated, in middle-class taste, with tufts of dyed grasses, colored paper, and other execrable ornaments. Here, as everywhere else in Moscow, one can never get out of eye-shot of several churches; white with brilliant external frescoes, or the favorite mixture of crushed strawberry and white, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... wagon-road terminates, and my way becomes execrable beyond anything I ever encountered; it leads over a low mountain-pass, following the track of the ancient roadway, that on the acclivity of the mountain has been torn up and washed about, and the stone blocks scattered ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... mail swung back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. The holiday—"everything shut up"—had arrived. No carrier was abroad. Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was well on foot. ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... asked to assent to contradictory propositions. We must not be asked to believe that injustice, cruelty, and implacable revenge, are not execrable because the Bible tells us they were habitually manifested by the tribal god of the Israelites. The fables of man's fall and of the redemption are fraught with the grossest violation of our moral conscience, and will, in time, be repudiated ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... standing in the midst of the courtyard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in execrable French, and German ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... storm; great laughter was in Heav'n And looking down, to see the hubbub strange 60 And hear the din; thus was the building left Ridiculous, and the work Confusion nam'd. Whereto thus Adam fatherly displeas'd. O execrable Son so to aspire Above his Brethren, to himself affirming Authoritie usurpt, from God not giv'n: He gave us onely over Beast, Fish, Fowl Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but Man over men He made not Lord; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... of the Societies for Reformation of Manners. The anonymous 'Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners' (13th ed., 1705) boasted that the Societies had enlarged their design by causing books to be written which aimed at "laying open to the World the outragious Disorders and execrable Impieties of our most Scandalous Play-Houses, with the fatal Effects of them to the Nation in general, and the manifest Sin and Danger of particular Persons frequenting of them" (p. 2). Defoe's 'Review' (III, no. 93, for August 3, 1706) ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... inverted tin that had contained Abernethy biscuits, stood a blue plush frame, with an inner rim of brass, several sizes too big for the picture-postcard installed in it. Zuleika's image gazed forth with a smile that was obviously not intended for the humble worshipper at this execrable shrine. On either side of her stood a small vase, one holding some geraniums, the other some mignonette. And just beneath her was placed that iron ring which, rightly or wrongly, Noaks supposed to alleviate rheumatism—that same iron ring which, by her touch ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... not a book," someone said. So she chose another. This time it was a history, but I have forgotten the writer's name. Our trepidation increased as she went on. Not a word of it seemed to be true, and the style in which it was written was execrable. ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf

... disposal, with the kings for his gaolers, and using the press as his mouth-piece, at a time when people have hardly the intimacy of friendship to make a reply; finally, with the ability of turning misfortune into ridicule: execrable power, whose ironical enjoyment is the last insult which the infernal genii can make the human ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... "Mere Cognette," who lost her husband about 1835, opened a little cafe at Issoudun during the first years of her widowhood. Balzac was an intermittent and impecunious client of hers; he would enter her shop, quaff a cup of coffee, execrable to the palate of a connoisseur like him, and "chat a bit" with the good old woman who probably unconsciously furnished ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... an oasis with eighty wells. The water was full of salts. It was bad as water; it was execrable as tea. Many of the wells on the Baghdad-Samarra Railway have these natural salts. Every one who left Sumaikchah next morning was suffering from diarrhoea. Here again one remembers the Anabasis and the troublesome experience which the notes I read at school ascribed to poisonous honey ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... adorned his mail, And special terror weighed upon his frown; His punier brethren quaked before his tail, Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail. So he grew lord and master of his kin: But who shall tell the tale of all their woes? An execrable appetite arose, He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in. He knew no law, he feared no binding law, But ground them with inexorable jaw: The luscious fat distilled upon his chin, Exuded from his nostrils ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... preached a most admirable, good, learned, honest, and most severe sermon, yet comicall.... He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin and his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present terme, now in use, of "tender consciences." He ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable skellum), his preaching and stirring up the mayds of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles. Thence going out of White Hall, I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I discerned ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... A Counter! stay ye, what are these then? O execrable Jugler! O dama'd Jugler! Look in your hose, hoa, this ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... very cold, and the snow lay deep upon the ground, my stay at Teheran was not unpleasant. The keen bracing air, brilliant sunshine, and cloudless blue sky somewhat made amends for the sorry lodging and execrable fare provided by mine host at the Hotel Prevot. I have seldom, in my travels, come across a French inn where, be the materials ever so poor, the landlord is not able to turn out a decent meal. I have ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine of Medicis and her offspring, those execrable deceivers, corrupters, and executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible abominations, familiar as household words to the French court of that day, to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions, perjuries, the massacres that pollute the annals of France during that period, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... unknown to history. At the celebrated siege of it, in the time of Catharine de Medicis, that execrable princess, distinguished herself by her personal intrepidity. It is said, that she landed here, in a galley, bearing the device of the sun, with these words in greek, "I bring light, and fine weather"—a motto which ill corresponded ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... joined it, but no dust-spurts leaped from the dune, where now a continual play of fire was leaping out. The Beni Harb, keenly intelligent, sensed either that they were being fired at with blanks, or that the marksmanship aboard the air-liner was execrable. A confused chorus of cries and jeers drifted down from the sand-hills; and all at once a tall, gaunt figure in a brown and white striped burnous, with the hood drawn up over the head, leaped ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... gradually spread, more particularly amongst the nobility, superseding the horse-litters which had till then been used for the conveyance of ladies and others unable to bear the fatigue of riding on horseback. The first carriages were heavy and lumbering: and upon the execrable roads of the time they went pitching over the stones and into the ruts, with the pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea. That they had no springs, is clear enough from the statement of Taylor, the water-poet—who deplored the introduction of carriages as a national ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... which he used to pin to the nearest tree. Black Bart would have been shot on sight had he presented his doggerel to any self-respecting Western editor; nevertheless the sentiment that inspired a bandit to set forth his misdeeds in execrable rhyme transformed him from a criminal into a popular hero! The virtues that counted in the foothills during the eighties were generosity, courage, and that amazing power of recuperation which enables a man to begin life again and ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... Goggins was a character in his way. He had the greatest longing to be thought a poet, put execrable couplets together sometimes, and always talked as fine as he could; and his mixture of sentimentality, with a large stock of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... the virgin, which procured her that honor, to be made the mother of Christ, and to be preferred before other women, but Gods only free mercy exalted her to that estate. Which wordes were counted most execrable in the face of ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... the front, and we chose a tall Swahili because he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fred remarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more than anybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be an execrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under any circumstances (and it would have been impossible to imagine circumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never had the heart ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz (where he reposes with FERDOUSI and SADI, the Oriental Homer and Catullus), and behold his name assumed by one STOTT of DROMORE, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... Amherst's views, but further proposed that dogs should be used to hunt them down. 'You will do well,' Amherst wrote to Bouquet, 'to try to inoculate the Indians by means of Blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad if your scheme for hunting them down by dogs could take effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present.' And Major Henry Gladwyn, who, as we shall ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... say they, that we should affirm ourselves holy and godly; far be this arrogance and rashness from us: we are miserable sinners; we should be mad, if we should arrogate holiness to ourselves. Thus they mock at true faith, and count such doctrine as this execrable error; and thus try to extinguish the Gospel. These are they that deny the faith of Christ, and persecute it throughout the whole world; of whom Paul speaks: "In the latter times many shall depart from the faith," etc., for we see by these means that true faith lies everywhere opprest; ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... listened with rapt attention, eagerly gazing at her. For, as she sang the last line and tore the hyacinth-blossoms from her hair, there crept into her voice a strangely poignant, pathetic little thrill, that redeemed the execrable faultiness of her singing, and brought the rude ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck

... gets in Paris, is a myth; one remembers it only in dreams. In reality, one has meat twenty years old, which is stringy and which serves to bulk out the packets of hemp intended for exportation. One consoles one's self with excellent tea and exquisite milk. As for the vegetables, they are execrable. Carrots are like turnips, and turnips are like nothing. On the other hand, there are gruels galore. You make them with millet, buckwheat, oats, barley; you can make them even with tree-bark. So, my nieces, take pity on this country, so rich ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... development of their motives and effects which suggest rather such a character as Bothwell's than such a character as that of the bloated and stolid sensualist who stands or grovels before us in the historic record of his life. As presented by Webster, he is doubtless an execrable ruffian: as presented by history, he would be intolerable by any but such readers or spectators as those on whom the figments or the photographs of self-styled naturalism produce other than emetic emotions. Here again the noble instinct of the English poet ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the whole period of her history, was a mere den of execrable thieves, whose feelings were systematically brutalized by the most revolting spectacles, that they might have none of those sympathies with suffering humanity, none of those 'compunctious visitings of conscience', which might be found ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... too, and scholar after scholar bounded from his chair, seized a piece of chalk, and began to write. Only one was left, who stood at his place, pouring forth the most execrable sounds ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister

... observes—The more there are beauties and great beauties in a work, I am the less surprised to find faults and great faults. When you say of a work that it has many faults, that decides nothing: and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable or excellent. You tell me of another, that it is without any faults: if your account be just, it is certain the work ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... France should have had so many illustrious dead, and that so many of them at this writing should be so dead, out from behind De Musset's vault or Marshal Ney's comes a snoopy, smirky wretch to pester you to the desperation that is red-eyed and homicidal with his picture post cards and his execrable wooden carvings. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... the amiable son of this most execrable father listened to the tale already told of his mother's wrongs. How often did the crimes of the parent dye the cheeks of the child with honest indignation, or pale them with fear? How did his love for his generous ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... we can do for her," said the Laureate. He tapped his box and without a moment's hesitation produced the most execrable distich in the language: ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... 'It is execrable Greek. But it is sound philosophy, I cannot deny. He knows Plato better than all the ladies and gentlemen in Alexandria put together, if my opinion on the point be ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... him and were glad to die for him. He had a soul, and honor, and remembrance of friendship. He was a genius, superlative and bewildering. We can forget and forgive some things in such a man; but for such a sovereign as Charles V, what can we say, save that he was not so execrable as Philip II, his son? Charles, being Flemish in birth, both Flanders and himself considered him less Spaniard than Belgian. He was Emperor first and King of Spain afterward; and in Flanders he set the pageant ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... the people derived from this execrable amusement, induced the candidates for office to gratify, them frequently with this spectacle. The exhibitions were no longer confined to funerals; they formed an integrant part of every election, and were found more powerful than merit in opening a way to office. The utter demoralization ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... necessary or probable in these times, that we are compelled to choose between them, or that we ever shall be compelled; but simply, that, in the middle of the eighteenth century, and in France,—that semi-Catholic and semi-infidel nation,—there existed on the one hand a most execrable spiritual despotism exercised by the Jesuits, and on the other a boundless ferment of destructive and revolutionary principles, operating on a people generally inclined, and in some cases abandoned, to every folly and vice. This despotism, while it was selfish and unwarrantable, still had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... the way," continued the young princes. "But is not this enough? Ah, brave Jason, turn back before it is too late. It would grieve us to the heart, if you and your nine and forty brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this execrable dragon." ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that I will have you flayed alive a little if you do not leave off that execrable habit of sleeping twenty hours in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... unknown to us; but the poem which his customers read oftenest on board is doubtless the Purgatory. The captain of the Palermo, an obliging man, with ear-rings, and speaking Siculo-English, does his job in nineteen hours; and giving you one execrable meal, gives you more than enough. This vessel (blessed privilege!) carries some of the Teffin family (Mr Teffin, our readers know, was bug-destroyer to the king), and is said to have no bugs. As to the two floating volcanoes, Vesuvius and Mongibello, we had heard much ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... some mischief still for idle hands to do, and one may well thank Heaven it was only a novel. Still, it means many days out of my life, and I would be glad to find some positive benefit accruing. Clearly, in the first place, I have eased my mind of some execrable English. I am cleaner now by some dozen faulty phrases that I committed and saw afterwards in all the nakedness of typewriting. (Thank Heaven for typewriting! Were it not for that, this thing had gone to the scoffing of some publisher's reader, and another had known my shame.) ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... scarcely mention, the Germans manufacture, not only the bread that is commonly in use among them, but almost all their ardent spirits, of which I have tasted very little, but which, whenever I did taste it, seemed to be execrable. Oats they likewise rear for their horses, as well as barley for malting; but these grains bear no proportion, in point of abundance, to ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... else from Nature's moral path decline, 'Lured by the toys that captivate the throng; 'To herd in cabinets and camps, among 'Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; 'Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song, 'How tyrant blood, o'er many a region wide, 'Rolls to a thousand thrones its execrable tide. ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... papers to be sold amongst the groups. "He is gone," said one of them, "this imbecile king, this perjured monarch. She is gone, this wretched queen, who, to the lasciviousness of Messalina, unites the insatiable thirst of blood that devoured Medea. Execrable woman, evil genius of France, thou wast the leader, the soul of this conspiracy." The people repeating these words, circulated from street to street these odious accusations, which fomented their hate, and envenomed ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Mr. STOEPEL. Tell me, gentle DALY, tell; why in the name of all that is intelligent, do you let STOEPEL transform each entr' acte at your theatre into a prolonged purgatory, by the villainous way in which he plays the most execrable music, for the most ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various

... of hippopotami—I should think there must have been a hundred of them or more of all sorts and sizes, from great bulls down to little calves. Some of these were killed, not many, for the shooting of our gallant company was execrable and almost at hazard. Also for every sea-cow that died, of which number I think that Captain Robertson and myself accounted for most—many ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... stopped that ram and felt him, and had his hand once in the hair of Ulysses, yet knew it not, and he chid the ram for being last, and spoke to it as if it understood him, and asked it whether it did not wish that its master had his eye again, which that abominable Noman with his execrable rout had put out, when they had got him down with wine; and he willed the ram to tell him whereabouts in the cave his enemy lurked, that he might dash his brains and strew them about, to ease his heart of that tormenting revenge which rankled in it. After a ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... boarded the train there. Some business called me to Mons last week. And you, I presume, like most tourists, are visiting a dozen cities in half as many days," said the duke, in his execrable English. They paused at the side of the Italian's conveyance, and Quentin mentally resolved that the dim light, as it played upon the face of the speaker, was showing to him the most repellent countenance ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... a little from my subject, which was only to propose a wish that these execrable denominations were a little better suited to an English mouth, if it were only for the sake of the English lawyers; who, in trials upon appeals to the House of Lords, find so much difficulty in repeating the names, that, if the plaintiff or defendant were by, they would ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... our bay? For what have the persons of General Vallejo and Judge Leese been seized and imprisoned? Why does a strip of cotton, painted with a gaping bear, flaunt itself above Sonoma? Oh, abomination! Oh, execrable profanation! Mother of God, open thine ocean and suck them down! Smite them with pestilence if they put foot in our capital! Shrivel their fingers to the bone if they dethrone our Aztec Eagle and flourish their stars and stripes above our ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... disclosure of the names of several persons concerned in burnings, waylayings, and robbery of arms. The two first names on the list were those of Phelim and Appleton, with several besides, some of whom bore an excellent, and others an execrable, character in ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... most charming country-house YOU CAN IMAGINE: it is QUITE SHUT IN by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be confessed, are execrable; it is winter now, and we are up to our knees in mud and snow. But oh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has had a sad attack of rheumatism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our kind friend Dr. Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to fancy that ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... dresses which Hollar engraved. My lofty gait imposed upon this primitive assembly, which receded to give me passage with as much silent respect as if I had really been the wise sovereign of Israel. When I got home, an execrable supper was served up to my majesty; I scolded in an unroyal style, and soon convinced myself ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... speak a language common to both, he will not flagitiously and foolishly advert to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained philosophy." Others might speak of "the Republic of letters;" with Dennie it was the Monarchy of letters. Several articles ran through the Port Folio of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... of Flanders, which has been so often the seat of the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared always as fruitful and as populous as ever. Even the Palatinate lifted up its head again after the execrable ravages of Louis the Fourteenth. The effects of the dreadful plague in London in 1666 were not perceptible fifteen or twenty years afterwards. The traces of the most destructive famines in China and Indostan ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... age. Within this precinct rest ten princes of the line, who from being nobles of Verona were elected in 1261 by unanimous popular choice to succeed the atrocious Eccelin da Romano, the tyrant of Padua, who also held Verona under his execrable rule. There is every variety of tomb, from the plain, heavy sarcophagus of Mastino I. to the magnificent four-storied monument of Can Signorio surmounted by his equestrian statue, a rising succession of small columns, arches, niches, statuettes, canopies, pinnacles, embowered in leafage, bud ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... good for this world," said Isabella, "as Manfred is execrable; but think not, lady, that thy weakness shall determine for me. I swear, hear me all ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... San Antonio to the City of Mexico our train ran into one of the sand-storms, for which the Mexican country is famous at certain times of the year; and we were at a standstill on a side track at a small station for twenty-four hours. The food was execrable, the wind and sand were choking, and the whole experience trying in the extreme. We were warned against thieves of the neighbourhood, and, during the night we were locked in the cars to ensure the safety of our belongings. In spite of these precautions a shawl which the Doctor ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... finding it all so fair, it seems hard to believe that the foundation of all its wealth and prosperity rested upon the most cruel, the most execrable, the most inhuman traffic that ever was plied by degraded men—the traffic in slaves. Yet in the old days the trade was far from being held either cruel inhuman—indeed, vessels often set sail for the Bight ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... newspaper, which he had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like that"—Aristide had never handled a foil in his life—"and when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from such an execrable fellow." ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... stemming the execrable concert, but it was overwhelmed. Wilfrid pressed forward to her. They could hear nothing but the din. The booth raged like an insurgent menagerie. Outside it sounded of brazen beasts, and beasts that whistled, beasts that boomed. A whirlwind huddled them, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... talk," said Lady Staines. "I judge by facts. Winn goes to church regularly, his temper is execrable, and he takes long walks by himself. A satisfied man is neither irate nor religious—and has nothing to walk off. Consequently it's a virtuous attachment. That's serious, because it will lead to the divorce court. Virtues ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... fought in a man's own house are not to be counted. The present situation of the President, unable to get the offices filled, really calls with uncommon obligation on those whom nature has fitted for them. I join with you in thinking the treaty an execrable thing. But both negotiators must have understood, that as there were articles in it which could not be carried into execution without the aid of the legislatures on both sides, therefore it must be referred to them, and that these legislatures, being free agents, would ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... had been no Uncle John, no Margaret, in this case. The room was furnished, evidently, by the same hand that had dressed the girl, and with equal taste. The carpet on the floor was costly, but hideous as staring colours and execrable design could make it. The furniture was cumbrous, and the fact that the ugly chairs were rosewood, and their cushions brocade, made them neither beautiful nor comfortable. On the bureau were some bottles of red ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... emperor: "So Frederic has deserted us all!"[2] Well, it was not the first time! Thirty years previous, when Louis was dauphin, the emperor had tried to turn the Swiss against him. Had not God, knowing the hearts of men, inspired the brave mountaineers, Louis would have been a victim of execrable treachery. The outcome had been wonderful, for an eternal friendship had sprung up between him and the Swiss which must ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... the "inside" of the old stage coaches. They were so low that even a short man could not stand upright. The seats were divided by arms, as now, and the floor was covered afresh for each journey with clean straw. The second-class coaches were simply execrable. They were roofed over, certainly; but, except a half-door and a low fencing, to prevent passengers from falling out, the sides were utterly unprotected from the weather. As the trains swept rapidly through the country—particularly ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... of the instruments and played and sang a piece for us, but I was not more fortunate in my guess with her. It was a wedding chorus, which I was willing to wager was the Japanese "Miserere"; but this error may have its significance after all. To us, in short, the music was execrable. A falsetto, and a grinding, singsong falsetto at that—the most disagreeable sound I ever heard in music—is very common, and highly esteemed. The instruments resemble banjos, and there is a harsh kind of ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... there were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur which, after sniffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into its master's backyard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young child who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs and babbled some unintelligible nonsense about ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... that he was receiving undue flattery. As to his companions they soon had to give it up as a bad job, though they did their best to make themselves agreeable by tucking their partners' arms under theirs, and chattering away in execrable Spanish. Tom noticed that their host and his spouse kept a bright lookout on them, and no sooner was a dance finished than they were taken up and introduced to other partners, who were quite ready to forgive their mistakes; the midshipmen, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... already to have been driven from Toulon by the uprising of the hostile party: in any case they were now dependent on charity; the Corsican revolt against the Convention was virtually successful, and it was said that in the island the name of Buonaparte was considered as little less execrable than that of Buttafuoco. What must he do to get a decisive share in the surging, rolling tumult about him? The visionary boy was transformed into the practical man. Frenchmen were fighting and winning glory everywhere, and among the men who were reaping laurels were some whom he had known ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... refreshment we chose—'Tea, and home-made bread and butter,' was my instant reply. 'Brown bread, if you please, and plenty of it.' I never enjoyed any luxury like it. I was positively ashamed of asking the waiter to refill the plate. After the execrable messes, and the hard ship-biscuit, imagine the luxury of a good slice of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... Only one slight incident disturbed a little our devotions. One of the Flibustiers, taking an indecent posture during the Elevation, was reprimanded by Captain Daniel. Instead of correcting himself, he made some impertinent answer, accompanied with an execrable oath, which was paid on the spot by the Captain, who pistolled him in the head, swearing before God that he would do the same to the first man who failed in respect for the Holy Sacrifice. The cur was a little flustered, as it happened very close to him. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... epistolary, epitome, equestrian, equilibrium, equinoctial, equity, equivocate, eradicate, erosion, erotic, erudition, eruptive, eschew, esoteric, espousal, estrange, ethereal, eulogistic, euphonious, evanescent, evangelical, evict, exacerbate, excerpt, excommunicate, excoriate, excruciate, execrable, exegesis, exemplary, exhalation, exhilarate, exigency, exodus, exonerate, exorbitant, exotic, expectorate, expeditious, explicable, explicit, expunge, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... of politics. "I charged him to his face," says La Fayette, "with preaching only about Heaven!... But next Sunday," continues the keen young officer, "I heard him again, when his loud invectives against 'the execrable House of Hanover,' showed that he was ready and willing to take ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Hound! Execrable monster!—Back with him, oh thou infinite spirit! back with the reptile into his dog's shape, in which it was his wont to scamper before me at eventide, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer, and to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... satisfied of the wrong done me (unintentional, I believe), by Colonel Badeau, when, in his book, he describes me as consuming seven hours in marching five miles in the direction of the battle. The march actually performed in that time was not less than fifteen miles, over an execrable dirt road. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... leaves, but no heart to it. "Superior send present to Inglez capitown." And having laid it carefully on the carronade slide, fumbled in his pocket for some time, and eventually produced a dirty sheet of paper, on which, written in execrable English, was a petition to assist the wants of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... day in company with Carreno at the house of Don Pedro de Arce, when a discussion arose about the merits of a certain copy of Titian's St. Margaret, which hung in the room After all present had voted it execrable, Carreno quietly remarked, "It at least has the merit of showing that no man need despair of improving in art, for I painted it myself when ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... Ierusalem on the other part, lately concluded and agreed vpon in these words. In the name of the supreame and indiuisible Trinitie, the Father, the Sonne, and holy Ghost, Amen. Forasmuch as the author of peace will haue peacemakers to be the sons of blessednes, and the execrable enemie of peace to be expelled out of the dominions of Christians: therefore for the perpetuall memorie of the thing, be it knowen vnto all men who shall see or heare the tenour of these presents: that there being matter of dissension and discord bred betweene the most renowmed prince and king, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... to prop it; or, by successive augmentations of its force an energy, as necessity might prompt, we shall finally accumulate, in a single body, all the most important prerogatives of sovereignty, and thus entail upon our posterity one of the most execrable forms of government that human infatuation ever contrived. Thus, we should create in reality that very tyranny which the adversaries of the new Constitution either are, or affect to ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... whose execrable way Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay, When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads Took the first survey of their new abodes; 10 Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce, What time the Bloodhound lur'd by Human scent Thro' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.' Now Clarendon is not a great writer, not even a good writer, for he is prolix and involved, yet we see that even Clarendon, when he comes to a matter in which his heart is engaged, becomes sweet and harmonious in his rhythm. If we turn to a prose-writer of the very first place, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... non-existent: the ailments of the body, pangs, sufferings, misfortunes, and humiliations are not evils, they are things indifferent. On the contrary, crimes and errors are such evils that they are equally execrable, and the wise man should reproach himself as severely for the slightest fault as for the greatest crime—a paradoxical doctrine which has aroused the warmth of even respectful ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... that theory. To kill, without the necessity demonstrated a score of times of legitimate defence, to kill women, children, prisoners, unarmed men, was a crime,—a crime, look at it how you will, that was execrable; those who ordered it, those who consented to it, those who executed it are, to my mind, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... with his stable lanthorn. Signora Marta, shivering, with a huge shawl over her head, took up her position, lanthorn in hand, behind the Signor Conte, and the ramshackle old coach, rattling over the uneven round cobble-stones of the execrable pavement with a crash of noise that seemed to threaten that every jolt would be its last, came to a standstill ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... related on oath a circumstantial history, altogether fictitious, of a treasonable plot, for the purpose of making himself important by destroying men who had given him no provocation. But in the year 1678 this execrable crime became the fashion, and continued to be so during the twenty years which followed. Preachers designated it as our peculiar national sin, and prophesied that it would draw on us some awful national judgment. Legislators proposed new punishments ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... without evidence of their having thought of them as sources of light in the extreme distance, as for example, in that of the reputed Claude in our National Gallery, called the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. I have not the slightest doubt of its being a most execrable copy; for there is not one touch nor line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... one, my dear father and mother, to be so beloved.—How much better, by good fame and integrity, is it to get every one's good word but one, than, by pleasing that one, to make every one else one's enemy, and be an execrable creature besides! ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... down on the edge of a great slab of rock to watch the baggage over the nek. It was a typical South African nek. An execrable path winding over the saddle of a low range of tumbled ironstone. Just one of those ranges which force themselves with sheer effrontery out from the level of the plain. Loose sugar-loaf excrescences which stud the sea of prairie with a thousand flat-topped islets, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer



Words linked to "Execrable" :   inferior, woeful, abominable, odious, damnable, wretched, cursed



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