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Trumpery   Listen
noun
Trumpery  n.  
1.
Deceit; fraud. (Obs.)
2.
Something serving to deceive by false show or pretense; falsehood; deceit; worthless but showy matter; hence, things worn out and of no value; rubbish. "The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither, for state to catch these thieves." "Upon the coming of Christ, very much, though not all, of this idolatrous trumpery and superstition was driven out of the world."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trumpery" Quotes from Famous Books



... trumpery flashes play Among the miracles above thee, Be taught to feel thy Maker's sway, To labour, so that He shall love ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... forgive," he said earnestly. "Only I should like you to wear something of mine besides that little trumpery brooch. You are faithful to that and I love you for it. I thought perhaps you had lost the ring and ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... has quite forgotten him and his trumpery love. If she lives she will come back to him, but if she dies she will die triumphant and serene. Life and death, the child and the mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and the other sets sail. They exchange a bright "All's well" ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... a dirty stair, and from the passage two dirty doors let into two filthy rooms, which had strong bars at the windows, and yet withal an air of horrible finery that makes me uncomfortable to think of even yet. On the walls hung all sorts of trumpery pictures in tawdry frames (how different from those capital performances of my cousin Michael Angelo!); on the mantelpiece huge French clocks, vases, and candlesticks; on the sideboards, enormous trays of Birmingham plated ware: for Mr. Aminadab not ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... French soil, to give them a respect for France, so he lets them come close up to Paris, so as to do for them at a single blow, and to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle that ever was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open their gates and there is a beginning of the ragusades, and an end of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the white flag out at the windows. The Emperor's closest friends ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of that. It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes, throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here and there, and at last he found the desk. The woman was forced to open it. It contained papers, love-letters many years old—all sorts of small trinkets and woman's memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and unembarrassed, I awaited at the Tuileries The issue, for I trusted the Nation's Common Sense; And although the rowdy Faubourgs tried a few of their Tom-fooleries, My soldiers soon let light into each trumpery defence. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... wringing his fat hands more like a play-actor than a gentleman. For one question my mistress asked the doctor about the lady's chances of getting round, he asked a good fifty at least. I declare he quite tormented us all, and when he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make the sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any good. I think he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head. But he was not a bad master—he had a monstrous civil tongue ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... she has just stolen out for a little," thought the giant, and he took a spoon, and went off to the cauldron to have a taste; but there was nothing in it but shoe-soles, and rags, and such trumpery as that, and all was boiled up together, so that he could not tell whether it was porridge or milk pottage. When he saw this, he understood what had happened, and fell into such a rage that he hardly knew what he was doing. Away he went after the Prince ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... in the 13th Light Dragoons, and subsequently in the 11th. He saw no service, and was an excellent soldier at mess and off duty. I am not qualified to speak with authority about his fulfilment of the trumpery trivialities which fill up garrison life, but here is ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... wort-refrigerators and various bent and contorted forms which evince the excellence of the material and of the methods. This is hardly enough, however, to justify the occupation of the position of vantage, and the trumpery collection of ropes, lines, nets, rods and hooks which is intended for a fishing exhibit only emphasizes the decision, acquiesced in by the public, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... thickset, middle-sized man; papers relative to ships and business, a spyglass, a loaded iron pistol, some books of navigation, some charts, several great pieces of tobacco, and a few cigars; some little plaster images, that he had probably bought for his children, a cotton umbrella, and other trumpery of no great value. In one of the trunks we found about twenty pounds' worth of English and American gold and silver, and some notes of hand, due in America. Of all these things the clerk made an inventory; after which we took possession of the money and affixed the consular seal to the trunks, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... demonstrations in their native countries, which are not democracies. In fact, we suspect that the reason why English "flunkeys" hate American "flunkeyism," with its laced coachmen, etc., is because mere money, by aping the insignia of rank, its gewgaws and trumpery, shows too plainly how much of the rank itself depends upon the fabrics and demonstrations through which it sets itself forth. We can conceive that an English nobleman travelling in this country, who might chance in one of our cities to see a turn-out with its outriders, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... better thing," said Rosamond; "an enchanted grove with a beneficent witch. We did it at St. Awdry's, with bon-bons and trumpery, in a little conservatory, hardly large enough to turn round in. If I may have the key ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... air of mystery. He makes no allusion whatever to the business he had been hurriedly summoned to investigate, but "he admired the grounds, and remarked that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing." To the gardener's astonishment Cuff proved to be quite a mine of learning on the trumpery subject of rose gardens. As in the case of Bucket, the effective armor of Cuff is flattery. "You have got a head on your shoulders and you understand what I mean," is his typical style ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... eighteen; some showed from time to time a dangerous weakness of mind. Over-strung and enfeebled, they gave enormous sums to ignorant charlatans; and it was a common thing for some bath-attendant or other trumpery who turned healer or prophet, to make a rapid fortune by the practice of medicine or theology. The number of lunatics increased continually; suicides multiplied in the world of wealth, and many of them were accompanied by atrocious and extraordinary circumstances, which ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... laugh. You don't know that lady. She's masterful, and she's rich—'rich as Croesus,'—and don't know what to do with her money. When the old man was lookin' around an' chargin' me 'bout things, she broke in with: 'Oh, don't worry, father-in-law. The trumpery stuff isn't worth so much thought. I'm not a relic hunter, and let it go,' says she. Then he reminds her that he wanted it kept right for—Whew! I near let the secret out, didn't I? He told me he wrote you a letter. He gave it to you, didn't he? Well, if ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... resembling very small shot flattened upon an anvil. The hole was not deeper than 1 1/4 inch in the hard muscle of the rump, and the only effect of Berry's '577 hollow Express was to produce this trumpery wound, which had enraged the animal without creating any serious injury. It is necessary to explain that the bullet of this rifle was more than usually light and hollow; but the want of penetrating power of the hollow projectile, and ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... which has come over Japan in a single generation requires interpretation. Is the change real or superficial? Is the new social order "a borrowed trumpery garment, which will soon be rent by violent revolutions," according to the eminent student of racial psychology, Professor Le Bon, or is it of "a solid nature" according to the firm belief of Mr. Stanford Ransome, one of the latest ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... given an example of his familiar style, I must find room for two or three final quotations. The thing Parker hated most in the world was a Tender Conscience. He protests against the weakness which is content with passing penal laws, but does not see them carried out for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences. "Most men's minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their passions." (7.) "However, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... glideth into fine ears, he calleth falsehood and trumpery. Verily, he believeth only in Gods that make a ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... first performed December 14, 1797, at Drury Lane, ran sixty nights and "continued popular as an acting play," says the biographer, "up to a very recent period."[36] This is strong testimony to the contemporary appetite for nightmare, for the play is a trumpery affair. Sheridan, who had a poor opinion of it, advised the dramatist to keep the specter out of the last scene. "It had been said," explains Lewis in his preface, "that if Mr. Sheridan had not advised me to content myself with a single specter, I meant to have exhibited ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... baby, great, big, blue-eyed, ridiculous, unpractical thing! What do you suppose he did when he was in Chester last month, just after I'd left there? Walked all the way into town and back, twenty miles—he hadn't enough money for his car fare—to buy me a little trumpery pin I wanted, when they had the identical thing on sale at the little shop by the station! Wasn't that like him? And with all his artistic talent, I have to tell him what kind of a necktie to get. Imagine him, with his hair, in a scarlet one, when he looks so adorable ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... Families they once lived in. These, with a Croud of Midwives, Twelve-penny Lottery-Women, and other How d'ye do People, are for ever plaguing them with this new Fancy and Pattern, and recommending such and such Persons to their Custom for Teas, China, and Trumpery. And while a Story is telling of who's a going to be Married, who is brought to Bed, or who has Miscarried, down goes the Cup and Saucer, and the Tea all over her Ladyship's Petticoat; then do they curse their unlucky Hands, and beg ten thousand Pardons ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... garden; the pines of the snows, the familiar growths of the temperate zone, the palms of the tropics; and finally—which is California's own—the Big Trees. All day you may ride and never once will your eye rest upon a picture that is commonplace or trumpery. ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... Indian who comes into town with all his money and buys everything he sees. There is no adequate realization of the large proportion of the labour and material of industry that is used in furnishing the world with its trumpery and trinkets, which are made only to be sold, and are bought merely to be owned—that perform no service in the world and are at last mere rubbish as at first they were mere waste. Humanity is advancing out of its trinket-making stage, and industry is coming ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... pleases, and to publish his belief to the world whenever he thinks fit, especially if it serves to strengthen the party which is in the right? Would any indifferent foreigner, who should read the trumpery lately written by Asgil, Tindal, Toland, Coward, and forty more, imagine the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and to be confirmed by Parliaments? Does any man either believe, or say he believes, or desire to have it thought that he says he believes, one syllable of the matter? And is any man ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... there is no work to attack, we attack the inanimate stupidity of our surroundings. It is strange that the laborious task once achieved should so often become the thing abhorred. Scales fall from our eyes, perspective is restored, and we see what a trumpery affair held us enthralled. I have often thought with dismay of the effect on scores of reformers, whom I know, if the reform to which they have sworn allegiance should be accomplished. To many this would be a personal disaster of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... connected with the tradition, that it was the residence of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin Mary. The house of St. Anne, observes Dr. Clarke, is the "commencement of that superstitious trumpery which for a long time has constituted the chief object of devotion and of pilgrimage in the Holy Land." No sooner was the spot discovered where the pious couple had lived than Constantine issued instructions to build upon it a magnificent church, the remains of which have ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... new-fangled musical eccentricities? Have we not all enjoyed the opera as it exists at present? And if so, why shall this Master Gluck step suddenly forward and announce to us that we know nothing of music, and that what we have hitherto admired as such was nothing more than trumpery? Why does he disdain the poetry of Metastasio, to adopt that of a man whom nobody knows? I will not lend my hand to mortify the old man who for thirty years has been our court-poet. I owe it to him, at least, not to appear at this representation, and that is reason enough ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... bottomless saucepans," continued Mrs. Kitson. "What a dish of nuts for my neighbours to crack! They always enjoy a hearty laugh at my expense, on Kitson's clearing-up days. But what does he care for my distress? In vain I hide up all this old trumpery in the darkest nooks in the cellar and pantry—nothing escapes his prying eyes; and then he has such a memory, that if he misses an old gallipot he raises a storm loud enough ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... daughter, and with good reason, seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so called—but the real Spanish guitar." His wife wrote letters for him, copied his manuscripts, and helped to correct his proofs. She remained at Oulton, or Yarmouth, while he went about; if he went to Wales or Ireland she sometimes ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... marvel that she did neglect those within. I made a comfortable supper of baked pumpkin and milk, and for lodgings I had a straw bed on the floor, in the dark loft, which was piled wellnigh full with corn- ears, pumpkins, and beans, besides a great deal of old household trumpery, wool, and flax, and the skins of animals. Although tired of my journey, it was some little time before I could get asleep; and it so fell out, that after the folks of the house were all abed, and still, it being, as I judge, nigh midnight, I chanced to touch ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... to her, were the only recognizable features of our southern shores. She would not admit indeed that there was any sea at all there; there was only churned chalk. Was it fair to say, even under the exasperation of continual goading, that the Isle of Wight was only a trumpery toy shop; that its "scenery" was fitly adorned with bazaars for the sale of sham jewelry; that its amusements were on a par with those of Rosherville gardens; that its rocks were made of mud and its ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... still Gilpin, who wrote so much on the beauties of country scenery at the close of the last century, has nothing better to say for Ferns than that they are noxious weeds, to be classed with "Thorns and Briers, and other ditch trumpery." The fact, no doubt, is that Ferns were considered something "uncanny and eerie;" our ancestors could not understand a plant which seemed to them to have neither flower nor seed, and so they boldly asserted it had neither. "This kinde of Ferne," says ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... let us go to Nahant. I want you to try your hand on a coast view. But what, what are you about? At that trumpery daguerreotype again? Let me see the beauty,—that's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... make up so much of our lives, just so long as that happens you do not and you cannot see the truth. But when it happens to a person, as it does happen in times of great and deep and bitter experience; when it happens that all these trumpery little objects of life are swept away; then occasionally, with astonishment, the soul sees that. It is also the soul of the others around. Even if it does not become aware of an absolute identity, it perceives that there is a deep relationship ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... brute of a man you are! There," cried she, taking a string of pearls from her neck, and throwing it on the table; "lend me some of your trumpery out of your shop, for I am going immediately from hence to take the Misses Dundas to the opera; so give me the hundred on that, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... interest of her own thriftless relatives. In his absence her brothers and sisters were at his table eating at his expense; food and coals bought with his earnings found their way to her mother's cottage; in short, he had "married the family," as they say. He knew it, too. In its trumpery way the affair was an open scandal, and the neighbours dearly wished to see him put a stop to it. Yet, though he would have had public opinion to support him in taking strong measures, his own good ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... come to despise thee," said he. "Thou would'st not have an honorable Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, but thou wast ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery plaything. Thou ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... the victory. The Carlton again began to pay the bills and pull the strings. Then in due time came the black night of defeat, when moon and stars disappeared, and Toryism was plunged into a deeper gulf than ever. The lesson is plain. Roll up your aristocratic trumpery, and give the party a leader. What it wants is a man strong enough to pull it out of the slough and set it on ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... kept a secret, the Colonel then being a comparatively penniless young lieutenant, and as such by no means a desirable son-in-law from the parental point of view. An elopement was contemplated so soon as the young lady should be of age; and it would be difficult to explain the occasion of the trumpery quarrel between the lovers, which ended in the lady taunting the gentleman with caring only about her money, and resulted in the rupture of the engagement. Doubtless it might have been renewed; but at this juncture the lieutenant was ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a riband, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting;—they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... even tenor of his way, speaking little, as was his wont, and thinking much about the case before him, of a very trumpery character, unless you measured it by the game laws. But no one less liked to be disturbed by noises of any kind than Sir Henry when at work. Even the rustling of a newspaper would cause him to direct the reader to study in some other ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... was, "What lack you, sweet sir? Chafing-dishes, shaving-basins, bowls, goblets, salts? All good and sound—none of your trumpery rubbish!" ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... strange that a man of his powers should set store by such trumpery, and, too, that these notions had not impaired his ability as a seaman. I did not reply. He gave no heed, however, but drew from a case a number of odes and compositions, which he told me were ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the pity. How should he show he is a gentleman but by hectoring a bit now and then, 'specially to such a rogue as thou, coming back when thy betters are lost. That is always the way, as I found when I lost my real silver crown, and kept my trumpery Parliament bit." ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... instance, when you send it down the railroad line, by the wire, is expressed thus: ... - .. .... .. . .. — . - Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph station when it comes! But what if Comet has gone by? Much good will your trumpery message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus:—Scre scre, scre; screeee; scre scre; scre scre scre scre; scre scre—scre, scre scre, screeeee ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... pity that the poor fellow gave himself the trouble to go down into damp, unwholesome graves, for the purpose of fetching up a few trumpery sheets of manuscript; and if the public has been rather tired with their contents, and is disposed to ask why Mrs. Sand's religious or irreligious notions are to be brought forward to people who are quite satisfied with their own, we can only say that this ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... asked them two ducats for the job, which they paid beforehand; so he fell to it and worked eight days, at the end of which he had made nothing of it, and said he could not bring his hand to paint such trumpery, and returned the money; yet, for all that, he married in the name of a good workman. The truth is, he has left his brushes and taken up the spade, and goes to the field like a gentleman. Pedro de Lobo's son has taken orders and shaved his crown, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... in this, that Mr. Kipling in his greater moments cannot help but see that he, with every inspired singer, is by right the prophet of a law and order compared with which all the majestic law and order of the British Empire are but rags and trumpery:—" ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... be misunderstood. By 'religion', I don't mean 'priest-craft'. I don't mean that superstitious grimace; that rolling up of white eyes, and spreading of sanctified palms; with 'disfigured faces and long prayers,' and all the rest of that holy trumpery, which, so far from making people cheerful, tends but to throw them into the dumps. But I mean, by 'religion', that divine effort of the soul, which rises and embraces the great author of its being with filial ardor, and walks and converses ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else they like; they place paltry-looking wooden confessionals beneath its sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of the Crucifixion; they hang tin hearts, and other tinsel and trumpery, at the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon;—in short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least troubled ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... careful buyer. Only worth-while things were selected, not a miscellaneous collection of trumpery junk. So the result to date was charming furniture and appointments, but ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... the sum of ten dollars in the rag-man's scales? More than once Helen had started at the rap at the door, half expecting an announcement that such and such a document had been found among that heap of trumpery, thought to have been worthless as yellow autumn leaves, which would install them as the possessors of such and such domain,—raps which usually brought nothing but a shoe-bill, or a demand for the price of the previous winter's coal. All these idle day-dreams Helen wisely kept to herself ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... who build upon the style of your neighbor's dress or equipage and trifle away God's precious moments in silly show and vain trumpery, go to the retreats at "Gladswood," follow Phillip Lawson in his daily rounds, and if you will not, like him, feel your heart expand and seek aspirations of a higher mould— a something which gives comfort each breath you draw, each word you utter and each thought you frame!—then, ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... anything of Arthur's spirit, may cause a difference between him and you, which you'll rue all your life—a difference that's a dev'lish deal more important, my good madam, than the little—little—trumpery cause which ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking it is correct. Page 98 "Dead is the Douglas, cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan" &c are of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue" &c. How famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with all their trumpery!" 126 page, the procession, the appearances of the Maid, of the Bastard son of Orleans and of Tremouille, are full of fire and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications from line 303 to 309 in the heat of the battle had better been omitted, they are not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... cents each, in payment. His knowledge of "soft sawder and human natur" is as great as that of Sam Slick, his inimitable representative; and many a shoeless Irish girl is induced to change a dollar for some trumpery ornament, by his artful compliments to her personal attractions. He seems at home everywhere; talks politics, guesses your needs, cracks a joke, or condoles with you on your misfortunes with an elongated face. He always contrives to drop in at ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... fig for St. Denis of France! He's a trumpery fellow to brag on. A fig for St. George and his lance! Who splitted a heathenish dragon. The saints of the Welshman and Scot Are a pair of pitiful pipers, Both of whom may just travel to pot, Compared with the patron of swipers— St. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... a temple, on the other a flaming altar, with the words nil nisi vobis; on the pyramidical cover stood a Roman soldier leaning on his shield. This cup the bibulous monarch ever afterwards esteemed as one of his rarest and richest jewels. In 1623 James issued another of those absurd and trumpery sumptuary edicts, recommending the ancient way of wearing caps, and requesting the Templars to lay aside their unseemly boots and spurs, the badges of "roarers, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... be softened down or prevented? Assuredly, not by mortifying her, which is the course commonly pursued with such tempers; nor by preaching to her about her own defects; nor by overrunning her infancy with books about good boys and girls, and bad boys and girls, and all that trumpery; but (and this is the only important thing I have to say upon the subject) by putting her in the way of acquiring without measure or limit such knowledge as will lead her out of herself, such knowledge as is ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... see any one so ridiculous as Elizabeth Templeton; just fancy wearing her Paris gown at a trumpery little home affair like this! Talk of coquetry," in a disgusted voice, "do you suppose she did not know what she was doing when she pinned those La France roses in her dress! It is not as though she were ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... and Ave-Maria's, by which, God being neglected, they expected to obtain all Things, though none were particularly nam'd: Their tricenary, and anniversary Masses, nay, and all those for the Dead: The dying and being buried in a Franciscan's and Dominican's Garment or Cowl, and all the Trumpery belonging to it; and did, in a manner condemn all Sorts of Monastical Life and Order, as ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... could make them. The first of these ladies had an emerald locket almost as big as a warming-pan, and Miss Robinson's pearls were a little fortune in themselves; but the chosen objects of that young idiot's attentions wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny trinkets, and gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself. Thus it will be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in this world, even in the midst of envious friends and ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... upon reasoning the matter over, I came to the philosophic conclusion, that it would be no shame for a person of my means to wear a cheaper thing; so I think I shall take it, and if you ever see it and call it 'trumpery' so much the worse." ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... queries ?!? would positively, my worthy publisher, make your worship's fortune. For it should concern ghosts, dreams, omens, coincidences, good-and-bad luck, warnings, and true vaticinations: no childish collection, however, of unsupported trumpery, but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the Ploughman's dreams, no stories from the 'Terrific Register,' nor fancies of hysterical females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins should be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... doubtless prepared for a catastrophe. They will expect to hear Mrs. Kinloch cry, "Lucy Ransom, you jade, what are you doing? Take your clothes and trumpery and leave this house!" You will suppose that her son Hugh will be shut up in the cellar on bread and water, or sent off to sea in disgrace. That is the traditional way with angry mistresses, I know; but Mrs. Kinloch was not one of the common sort. She did not know Talleyrand's maxim,—"Never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... housekeeper, a woman of credit and respectability—a fellow-servant of this fine gentleman before you—such worn-out rags as these? Would you have thought it worthy of consideration, if such a servant had thought proper to appropriate to her own use a cart-load of this trumpery? If the poor woman did remove out of sight such trash as this, all I say is, that she seems to have had more respect for the credit and honour of that noble house than any of the people whose ridiculous pretensions to honesty have persecuted her and exhibited themselves here. Gentlemen and Ladies, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various

... and forward, getting opinions, and surveying the bridge on all sides. At length I determined it could be done, and my heart beat nervously as the yawl neared the centre arch—not as to danger, but the dishonour of breaking a goodly spar at the end of a cruise, and in so trumpery a feat. It ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... "Wait till she comes to have chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard; "then you will see. I have brought up ten broods myself—as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a blessing to society—and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and brooder when I see her; and I know THAT fine piece of trumpery, with her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family life. SHE scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... leaves in the vases, cigarette ash on the table, no coals on the half-laid fire. In the merciless morning light Julia saw all the deficiencies; the way things were set best side foremost, though, to her, the worst side contrived still to show; the display there was everywhere, the trumpery silver ornaments, all tarnished for want of rubbing, and of no more intrinsic value and beauty than the tinfoil off champagne bottles; the cracked pieces of china—rummage sale relics, she called them—set forth in a glass-doored ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... been talking about the art of Mrs. Ross's protegee for nothing; and that art soon made short work of Keith Macleod's doubts. The fair stranger he had met at Prince's Gate vanished into mist. Here was the real woman; and all the trumpery business of the theatre, that he would otherwise have regarded with indifference or contempt, became a real and living thing, insomuch that he followed the fortunes of this spoiled child with a breathless interest ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break the trumpery door with a kick ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... stupid it all is!" thought Vassilyev. "What is there in all this trumpery I see now that can tempt a normal man and excite him to commit the horrible sin of buying a human being for a rouble? I understand any sin for the sake of splendor, beauty, grace, passion, taste; but what is there here? What ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... one feel it an intolerable wrong to the world that she did not at once go upon the stage. Tableaux vivants were another of our occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all kinds of miscellaneous trumpery converted our familiar companions into the people of a pictorial world. We had been thus engaged on the evening after the incident narrated in the last chapter. Several splendid works of art—either arranged after ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... little crash, and poor Mr Gainsborough's birthday gift lay smashed to bits on the floor. For the second time their love bore hard on Mr Gainsborough's crockery. Startled they turned to look, and then they both broke into merry laughter. The trumpery thing had seemed a sign to them, and now the sign was broken. Their first kiss was mirthful over ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six soiled cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... are the handy terms, admiring or disapproving, which criticism claps with random facility on to every imaginable school. This artist or group of artists goes in for the real—the upright, noble, trumpery, filthy real; that other artist or group of artists seeks after the ideal—the ideal which may mean sublimity or platitude. We summon every living artist to state whether he is a realist or an idealist; we classify all dead artists as realists or idealists; we treat the matter as if it were ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... has strength. Then the people conveniently flock in; ambassadors come from all corners of the earth to acknowledge Rienzi; Adriano warns him that mischief is breeding, and Rienzi calmly smiles; there is a most elaborate ballet, occupying many pages of the score and full of trumpery tunes; Orsini stabs Rienzi, and all the patricians are seized by the guards; Rienzi shows himself unhurt, being protected by a breastplate; the conspirators are condemned to die and are led away. Then Adriano and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... "Trumpery! That's what it is to you. My shawl is worth five hundred dollars if it is worth a dollar. It is worth a great deal more than that, I believe; but I declare I get confused among the prices of things. That is one of the cares of riches, that ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... not in pride so much as in servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,—haughty, brutal stupid, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with diligence and labor such things as are for no use is not seemly or honorable, but ridiculous. If Ulysses indeed had tied up with the knot which Circe taught him, not the gifts he had received from Alcinous,—tripods, caldrons, cloths, and gold,—but heaping up trash, stones, and such like trumpery, should have thought his employment about such things, and the possession and keeping of them, a happy and blessed work, would any one have imitated this foolish providence and empty care? Yet this is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... she spoke—the beautiful oval of the face, the white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in truth!—so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female franzy." Distress of mind—distress for his trumpery wound?—had shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt a rush of sympathy—of ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Fancy anyone a paintin' them weeds and trumpery!" and with that cheerless remark the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... social activities within its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and tennis upon reclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard upon its frontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable Thing lay breathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out. The challenge of their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost provocative. Their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference. They ran fool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their vulgar hearts. With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... indeed! I've been surprised the people who have everything will gather up their cards and trumpery boxes after a luncheon! And your thoughtfulness is lovely, Mona. We'll each give them our own ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... right way to look at the thing," said the larger-bodied Admiral; "and I only wish Twemlow could have heard you. I asked him to dine with us yesterday, as you know, because you would have done him so much good; but he sent some trumpery excuse, although his wife was asked to come with him. She stopped him, no doubt; to look big, I dare say; as if they could dine with a Lord ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... the heliograph winked and flickered on the hills, striving to tell the good news to a mountain forty miles away And in the evening there arrived, dusty, sweating, and sore, a misguided Correspondent who had gone out to assist at a trumpery village-burning, and who had read off the message from afar, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... together in a most curious Piece of Network, the Parts of which were likewise imperceptible to the naked Eye. Another of these Antrums or Cavities was stuffed with invisible Billetdoux, Love-Letters, pricked Dances, and other Trumpery of the same Nature. In another we found a kind of Powder, which set the whole Company a Sneezing, and by the Scent discovered it self to be right Spanish. The several other Cells were stored with Commodities of the same kind, of which it ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... (to be exemplified and commented on more fully a little later) of vying with the Arabian Nights, substitutes for the genuine local colour and speech the fade jargon of French eighteenth-century "sensibility"—autels and flammes and all the rest of the trumpery. But it does worse still—it tries to be instructive, and informs us of the difference between male and female dives and peris, of the custom of suttee, and of the fact that there are many professional singers and dancers among Indian girls. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... chastity of their religion. In the meane season, Phelibus and his company, (by reason of the bruit which was dispersed throughout all the region there of their beastly wickednesse) put all their trumpery upon my backe, and departed away about midnight. When we had passed a great part of our journey, before the rising of the Sun, we came into a wild desart, where they conspired together to slay me. For after they had taken the goddesse from my backe and set her gingerly upon the ground, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... she would not be friendly with him any more, I do call it snobbish, don't you, Mamma? just because she is going to be a Marquise. It isn't as if he was an English Marquis even, like Lord Valmond, that would be of some importance—but a trumpery French title, without any land or money, it is ridiculous. Of course, here no one has his own land really since the Revolution, I mean like "Tournelle," they only call the new house that; I believe the real "Tournelle" is down in Touraine somewhere and belongs to some one else now. This ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... last. It was widely rumored in the town that something had gone wrong at Major Milroy's with the new governess, and that Mr. Armadale was mixed up in it. I paid no heed to this, believing it to be one of the many trumpery pieces of scandal perpetually set going here, and as necessary as the air they breathe to the comfort of the inhabitants of this highly ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... rainspots which meet upon a window-pane in wet weather. We used to wander about the stony playground, from which every blade of grass was trampled, except in the remoter corners, and to walk with our arms about each other's shoulders, and to exchange almost daily such trumpery schoolboy treasures as we owned. I never had a child sweetheart, and I never knew anybody with whom I exchanged a caress, or bartered a word of real kindness, until I fell in with this fascinating young ragamuffin. I never spoke about him to a soul, but he filled my thoughts night ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... the Colonel in that role." Champney laughed. "What does he do with all his rhetorical trumpery at such times? I've never seen him under fire—in fact, he never had been when ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... fire-place, so large that an ox might have been roasted before it. The second and third stories originally contained but one chamber each, of ample dimensions, and furnished in the plainest manner. The attic was an unplastered room, which might have been used for lodgings or storing trumpery. The house stood about one hundred years after Josiah Franklin left it, and was finally destroyed by fire, on Saturday, Dec. 29, 1810. The spot on which it stood is now occupied by a granite warehouse bearing the inscription, "BIRTHPLACE OF ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... This, according to Plutarch, "was of great size and weight, and of small value, so that the equivalent for ten minae (about $140) required a great room for its stowage, and a yoke of oxen to draw it." The object of this, he tell us, was to prevent its being used for the purchase of "foreign trumpery." ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... holds—away from his sight—in that tremulous hand, is but patched up from the foil and cardboard bought at the stationer's shop. You might see it was nothing more, if you tried to see. Did a soul present think of such minute investigation? Not one. In the actor's hand that trumpery became at once the glorious thing by which Napoleon had planted the sentiment of knightly heroism in the men whom Danton would have launched upon earth ruthless and bestial, as galley-slaves that had burst ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... you she is infamous? Your innocency should be ignorant of such trumpery tittle-tattle. And one can be civil without ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... better than a blind; for Barney had planned it all out that we were to go down to Galway and fetch the new ploughs home in the hooker, to save the cost of the land-carriage. 'Sure it's bad enough for the squire to be soiling his hands with trumpery made by them English thieves, that's no more conscience over bothering a gentleman for money nor if he was one of themselves,' said Barney; 'sorra a halfpenny shall the railway rogues rob him of.' Ah, little stowaway, ye may guess my delight! ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... was a battle royal over the book and Christian evidences. He was very charming personally, though at times he looked stern and angry and white to a degree, so that I wondered sometimes how I had the courage to go on—the drawn brows were so formidable! There was one moment when he talked of "trumpery objections," in his most House of Commons manner. It was as I thought. The new lines of criticism are not familiar to him, and they really press him hard. He meets them out of Bishop Butler, and things analogous. But there is a sense, I think, that question and answer don't fit, and with it ever-increasing ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break that trumpery door with a kick ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... praises. I waited at the door; you were the key; Your ward is nicely turned, and yet no bolt it raises. Unlifted in the broadest day, Doth Nature's veil from prying eyes defend her, And what (he chooses not before thee to display, Not all thy screws and levers can force her to surrender. Old trumpery! not that I e'er used thee, but Because my father used thee, hang'st thou o'er me, Old scroll! thou hast been stained with smoke and smut Since, on this desk, the lamp first dimly gleamed before me. Better have squandered, ...
— Faust • Goethe

... won't be content without beggaring me of my trumpery twenty-five hundred as soon ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... know!" he cried, furiously. "There is something underneath all this trumpery. I am not a man to be trifled with in this fashion, I can tell ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... was like the love of money, and increased by indulgences, beyond the power of a manager to gratify: I proved by mathematical demonstration, that small theatres wanted nothing but good dialogue to support them: I entreated you to send your gorgeous trumpery to rag-fair, and to diminish your overgrown Drury, which no man could now think of entering unaccompanied by a telescope and an ear-trumpet. All the persuasions of a Tully, all the energy of a Waithman, were enlisted into my harangue; which finished by exhorting your worship ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... leddyship's pipe, and mony a mad measure has been danced sin' syne; for down cam masons and murgeon-makers, and preachers and player-folk, and Episcopalians and Methodists, and fools and fiddlers, and Papists and pie-bakers, and doctors and drugsters; by the shop-folk, that sell trash and trumpery at three prices—and so up got the bonny new Well, and down fell the honest auld town of Saint Ronan's, where blithe decent folk had been heartsome eneugh for mony a day before ony o' them were born, or ony sic vapouring fancies kittled in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... the mass, and such trumpery as that, Popery, purgatory, pardons, were flat Against God's word and primitive constitution, Crept in through covetousness and superstition Of late years, through blindness, and men of no knowledge, Even such as ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... that was nothing to this. Anybody, even Emmy, curly-headed baby that she was, could turn poor Septimus into a slave. For a woman to impose her will upon Clem Sypher, Friend of Humanity, the Colossus of Curemongers, was no such trumpery achievement. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... and your habit—write a department for the Saturday News after the fashion of the Noctes. Think it all over whilst you are away. What are you going to bring me for a present? Don't go to buying any foolish trumpery; you have no money to waste on follies. What I need is a "Noctes," and any other useful book you may get hold of in New York. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... loyalty it is that sets up the loss of their trumpery treasure over and above the loss of their king, my brother Otho! If," she shrilled indignantly, "we are not unwise to listen to this at all. What is it you think? What ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... in the presence of his friends in the Museum of Marvels. He knew that the fictitious Rev. Andrew Rowbottom had been inquired for by the police as a man who might provide a clue, but the search for him had not been warmly followed up, it being assumed that he was some trumpery imposter. In any case, his importance was forgotten in a splendid dramatic idea entertained by the detectives, inculpating a clever and notorious criminal. The notorious criminal proved an alibi, and after being a nine days' wonder the great diamond robbery and murder case was supplanted ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... magnificence. In the throngs that lined the streets there were gaunt bodies and hungry faces everywhere. Here and there stood one, a man or a woman, as naked as a savage in Europe, and yet dull to shame. Even the trader, with trumpery gauds on his coat, aping the prevailing fashion for display, had a scared, uneasy look to his face, as though he had forgotten the mere name of safety, and hid a frantic heart with his tawdry outward ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... lawyer, Mr. Bruff, as my father's representative. No sensible person, in a similar position, could have viewed the matter in any other way. Nothing in this world, Betteredge, is probable unless it appeals to our own trumpery experience; and we only believe in a romance when we see ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... new troubles? The Spanish Charles Stuart invasion plot is indeed afoot, and that union abroad of the Protestant powers for which we crave is by no means accomplished. Therefore, says the Protector, you must be ready to fight on land as well as by sea. No time this for disunion, trumpery quarrels over points of form. Yet such debate ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Hill as the man who had been carried into his bar after being knocked down. Nothing was more common than mistakes of identification. His glance wandered round the room, as though in search of some inspiration for his next question. His eye took mechanical note of the trumpery articles of rickety furniture; wandered over the cheap almanac prints which adorned the walls; but became riveted in the cheap overmantel which surmounted the fire-place. For, in the slip of mirror which formed the centre of that ornament, Inspector Chippenfield caught sight of the ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... he ever make a High Sheriff of himself, with chains dangling over the front of his waistcoat, or little pistols, seals, or trinketry appearing below his waistband, as much as to say, "if you only knew what a watch I have inside!" Nor does he sport trumpery rings upon raw-boned fingers; if he wears rings, you may depend upon it that they are of value, that they are sparingly distributed, and that his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... by stern resolves. I think I rather enjoyed the small sacrifices and the steady saving; and I know I very much enjoyed applying for and obtaining another small increase of salary, after completing a trumpery series of sketches of pleasure resorts near Sydney, the publication of which brought ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... we have in our mother-tongue several excellent works in verse and prose, and, heaven be praised! but little left of the trash and trumpery stuff of those duncical mumblers of ave-maries and the barbarous foregoing Gothic age, I have made bold to choose to chirrup and warble my plain ditty, or, as they say, to whistle like a goose among the swans, rather than ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... time's precious," said the coachman, haughtily. "You are only going to some trumpery little village or other in the neighborhood, while we are going ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made himself disagreeable—or it pleased God to make him so—and then he dared her to contradict him. It's the way to make any trumpery tempting, to ticket it at a high price in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... said it was, that I know. The job I'm in charge of is a bigger concern than your trumpery ring, my friend." ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... tongues for their own sake, and the mere satisfaction of acquiring them, surely argues an intellect of a very low order; a mind disposed to be satisfied with mean and grovelling things; taking more pleasure in the trumpery casket than in the precious treasure which it contains, in the pursuit of words, than in the acquisition ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... that the author of such a letter, instead of writin about pipple of tip-top qualaty, was describin Vinegar Yard? Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin to was a chased, modist lady of honor, and mother of a famly? O trumpery! O morris! as Homer says: this is a higeous pictur of manners, such as I weap to think of, as evry morl ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... will book at Fairfax Court House is the inventory of a gentleman's estate—household fabrics, mahogany and walnut furniture, family pictures, maps, prints, books, silverware, glassware, chinaware, and all manner of utensils, and drawers of "Trumpery!" More personal items imply a rich wardrobe and a man who doubtless cut a figure in society, for the list of apparel is long, containing, "1 scarlet cloth jacket with broad gold lace," "1 crimson velvet jacket with broad gold lace," "1 pair scarlet breaches with gold knee bands," ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee,—or the Lord ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... European seaside resort for a penny or two. But there it was a jewel beyond price, and no doubt was the first that had found its way into the kingdom. I put it on a table and left it there, wondering at the value which was set upon this trumpery article ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... questions may be answered some time or other, namely,—Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" [Footnote: Works of J. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... the greatest trumpery that ever was seen. If the prince had known what he is, he would have hung him rather than decorate him with ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... man—for that's what you look like. And I should like to know what the apron's for? There must be something in it not very respectable, I'm sure. Well, I only wish I was Queen for a day or two. I'd put an end to freemasonry, and all such trumpery, I know. ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold

... to spend, though. Pa said he'd lay it out for me; and he brought me home a cart from the Boulevard; but it didn't cost two napoleons. It was a trumpery cart, that went smash the first time Arthur ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... author of this libell was some vagabond huckster or pedler, and had gone particularly into many corners of Island to vtter his trumpery wares, which he also testifieth of himselfe in his worthy rimes, that he had trauailed thorow the greatest part of Island, whereupon when he had played the cousining mate with others (for often times deceit and lying are ioyned together, and he hath sufficiently proued himselfe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... heathen gods, but Christianized through twelve centuries gone by. The world has nothing else like the Pantheon. So grand it is, that the pasteboard statues over the lofty cornice do not disturb the effect, any more than the tin crowns and hearts, the dusty artificial flowers, and all manner of trumpery gew-gaws, hanging at the saintly shrines. The rust and dinginess that have dimmed the precious marble on the walls; the pavement, with its great squares and rounds of porphyry and granite, cracked crosswise and in a hundred ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Mr. Crisp, who, very much perplexed, said, in a boggling manner, that it was a novel-he supposed from the circulating library—only a trumpery novel." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... able to keep his purpose pure, he falls as fast as he struggles up, and still struggling falls again. Soft moments of peace with GOD and man may never come to him. He may feel himself viler than a thousand trumpery souls who could not have borne his trials for a day. Child, for you and for me is reserved no such cross and no such crown as theirs who falling still fight, and fighting fall, with their faces Zionwards, into the arms of the Everlasting Father. 'As one whom ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... have been honest enough; you have never even pretended to think of me as anything else but a prostitute,—a trumpery bit of second-hand finery that plenty of other men have ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... you I am utterly shocked! You to say such a thing to my face, when we have been as good as engaged to each other all our lives! Who cares for the trumpery ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... former letter I pointed out how cleverly the Nationalists dissect the bill, how they point out that its proposals are insulting to Ireland, how they prove that its provisions are inconsistent and unworkable, how they propose to discount the trumpery restrictions and the gimcrack "safeguards" of the proposed measure, how in short, they tear the bill to rags, laugh its powers to scorn, and hold its authors in high derision. The Belfast men do not discuss the bill, do not examine it clause by ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... suppose they have anything to do with each other. What riled me was the way she talked of the shooting. People do when they take a little shooting. They pay some trumpery thirty or forty pounds a year, and then they seem to think that it's almost the same as though they owned the property themselves. I've known a man talk of his manor because he had the shooting of a wood ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... After thirty years' service the postman is dignified with the title of Ober-Brieftraeger. It is difficult to understand the type of mind which is flattered by such infantile honors. At any rate, it is a cheap system of rewards, and so long as men will work for such trumpery ends the state profits by playing upon their childish vanity. During the year 1912 more than 7,000 decorations were distributed, and some 1,500 of these were of the three classes of the Order of the Red Eagle. On the ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... no blear-eyed spinster mooning over the trumpery of a heyday that is gone, but a Miss Mischief offering her dainty fingers to you before the kiss of your grandfather's lips is yet dry on them. The damask petticoat, the powdered wig, and the coquettish little patch by her dimpled little mouth are off and into the garret, and ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... finally settled That new highway to make, which will join our town with the main road. But I am greatly afraid that the young generation won't act thus; Some on the one hand think only of pleasure and trumpery dresses, Others wont stir out of doors, and pass all their time by the fireside, And our Hermann, I fear, will always be one ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe



Words linked to "Trumpery" :   drivel, rubbish, jargon, tripe, applesauce, folderal, gimcrack, ornament, folderol, falderol, vernacular, lingo, patois, gimcrackery, frill, codswallop, slang, decoration, wish-wash, garbage, nonsense, argot



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