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Upstart   Listen
adjective
Upstart  adj.  Suddenly raised to prominence or consequence. "A race of upstart creatures."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Upstart" Quotes from Famous Books



... consuls rather distrusted the courage than disbelieved the sincerity of their soldiers: that inaction and idleness among men in arms were a novel form of sedition. Besides this they uttered insinuations, partly true and partly false, as to the upstart nature of their race and origin. While they loudly proclaimed this close to the very rampart and gates, the consuls bore it without impatience: but at one time indignation, at another shame, agitated the breasts ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... contemplation. I should have remembered enough geology to know that granite is not found in this section, except at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The hills I like are made of old-fashioned stuff, not young upstart tufa and sandstone that was not thought of when the Laurentians were built. One really cannot have much respect for a rock that he can kick to pieces. The gay young buttes in this land of quickly shifting horizons are not without their charm; they look well in certain lights, and they ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... to Aquileia, which is now an old cathedral, built upon the remains of a very early basilica, standing in a space in a scattered village. But across this dusty space there was carried the head of the upstart Maximinus who murdered Alexander Severus, and later Aquileia brought Attila near to despair. Our party alighted; we inspected a very old mosaic floor which has been uncovered since the Austrian retreat. The Austrian priests have gone ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... disguised itself, and it is the spirit in which Robert Louis Stevenson tries to free his old-world conscience from the old-world forms. To take a more recent parallel, it is the manner, somewhat exaggerated, in which Mr. G. K. Chesterton examines the upstart heresies of our own agitated day. There would be nothing fanciful in suggesting that all these men owed a direct debt to Hazlitt—Stevenson on many occasions acknowledged it.[13] Hazlitt was as honest and sincere as any of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... one of them, a gentleman who looked well as I thought, at first sight, thanks to his tailor, was dainty enough to take off his boots in order to put on a pair of old shoes! Another, an old man, who was probably some wealthy upstart (these are the most ill-bred), while sitting opposite to me, had the delicacy to place his two feet on the seat quite close to me. This is ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... energy of the French people; but when outrages perpetrated on the national feelings of Germans and Spaniards added an enthusiastic popular support to the hatred which the European monarchs cherished towards a domineering upstart, the fall of Napoleon became only a question of time. The excess and the abuse of French national efficiency and energy, consequent upon its sudden liberation and its perpetuation of an illogical but natural ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... must you battle to the uttermost. For we owe loyalty to King Ryence who is enemy of King Arthur. Therefore, are we his enemies too, and enemies also of all of King Arthur's subjects. And thus, we flaunt our enmity. We here and now call King Arthur an upstart and if you be of his court you cannot do aught else ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... antipathy to the conqueror. It required almost a formal order from her husband to bring her to Dresden. She was then a pretty woman, twenty-four years old, witty, and proud of her birth and her crown. Napoleon she looked on as an upstart, a vainglorious adventurer, the cause of all the humiliations inflicted on the Austrian monarchy; and the splendor which surrounded the hero of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Wagram, aroused in her a resentment all the keener ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... Niccolo Piovano da Bagnore. The former was exasperated against Lorenzo for the reckless sack of Volterra, and because he had taken possession of a valuable alum-pit belonging to his family. The latter was Vicario of Monte Murlo, an upstart Papal precis-writer, whose family was plebeian and employed upon Pazzi property in that locality; he was "a man steeped in crime and a creature of Cavaliere ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... an impudent assurance Irresolution and weakness in a commander operate the same Love of life increase in proportion as its real value diminishes Opinion almost constitutes half the strength of armies Presumptuous charlatan Pretensions or passions of upstart vanity Pride of an insupportable and outrageous ambition Prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy They ought to be just before they are generous They will create some quarrel to destroy you Vices or virtues of all civilized nations are relatively the same We are ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger

... likelihood have come through him.—For Bruce the elder had determined that in his son he would restore the fallen fortunes of the family, giving him such an education as would entitle him to hold up his head with the best, and especially with that proud upstart, Alec Forbes. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... to patronize the upstart who had ventured so boldly into the territory of the great trust, but one glance at the clear-cut resolute face of the young man ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen from your places, and saying, "We will be gentlemen in our turn?" Now, Sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it, than to an upstart, and so Society is more easily supported.' BOSWELL. 'At present, Sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very rich man, from ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... the irresistible power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... 1170.—The aggrieved bishops at once crossed the sea to lay their complaint before Henry. "What a parcel of fools and dastards," cried Henry impatiently, "have I nourished in my house, that none of them can be found to avenge me on one upstart clerk!" Four of his knights took him at his word, and started in all haste for Canterbury. The Archbishop before their arrival had given fresh offence in a cause more righteous than that of his quarrel with the bishops. Ranulf de Broc and others ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... you impudent little upstart from nowhere! I invented you, and if you're not careful ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... contribute the entire materials, and are therefore solely entitled to our gratitude and deference for the abundant supply they have furnished to our curiosity, are uniformly treated in these books with disdain and contumely as unworthy of toleration, while the comparative upstart race of the believers in the Koran are held out to us as the only enlightened and upright among the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... he had many, especially among the nobility, who looked upon him as a vulgar upstart, used this incident to bring him before a court-martial. It was unpatriotic, they declared, and they demanded that he be degraded and fined. His defence, which with all the records of his career are in the Navy Department at Copenhagen, was brief but to the point. ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... and took the part, we are told, of a ghost in one, and of a servant in another, neither of them great parts. He acted, too, in plays written by other people. But it was as a writer that he made a name, and that so quickly that others grew jealous of him. One called him "an upstart Crow, beautified in our feathers . . . in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in the country."* But for the most part Shakespeare made friends even of rival authors, and many of them loved him well. He was good-tempered, merry, witty, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... strike was only a-b-c to me. And to hear them argue—oh, my! it would have been funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a conceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks was a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head again, and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... discovered that he was making more money than was Carl, and asked Carl, in her presence, if he'd like a loan, then she hated Martin, and would give no reason. She became unable to see him as anything but a boor, an upstart servant, whose friendship with Carl indicated that her husband, too, was an "outsider." Believing that she was superbly holding herself in, she asked Carl if there was not some way of tactfully suggesting to Martin that he come to the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... this upstart, anyway, to come setting signs and marks in the land that had been theirs from time immemorial? What mattered the little copper-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he was beginning to send out word of his desire to work with and for the cattlemen of Lost Valley, the settlers, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... seemed to bloom around. No signs of human thrift appeared to check the delicious wildness of Nature, who here reveled in all her luxuriant variety. Those hills, now bristled like the fretful porcupine, with rows of poplars (vain upstart plants! minions of wealth and fashion!), were then adorned with the vigorous natives of the soil—the lordly oak, the generous chestnut, the graceful elm—while here and there the tulip-tree reared its majestic head, the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... the offer. Then I cannot bring myself to think of selling Claremont, though I know that a penniless man has no right to the luxury of sentimental attachments. If I were in Egypt it would not matter to me that some upstart speculator ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... I said to the portly, well-fed, swaggering cockney upstart; but there was so much in it uncomplimentary to himself and his driving, that the crowd already assembled cheered, as all crowds will cheer profane and personal language; and he was glad enough to gather up his reins and touch his horses, and trot off, without having first gone through the ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... and was very susceptible to flattery. As for the other European sovereigns, they treated the French Emperor with insulting haughtiness and sat up nights devising new ways in which they could show their upstart "Good Brother" how sincerely ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... your poor father had been alive," wound up Mrs. O'Keeffe, "the dirty upstart would never have dared to put such an insult on his orphaned daughter, that he wouldn't, and if Dan O'Leary should hear of it—which the saints forbid—it's not the jig that his foot would be teaching Mr. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... was an upstart creature, that had learned fine manners in the cafes in town. And since I could not keep myself from telling my companion now and then what I thought of his uncleanly ways, there grew up a certain ill-feeling between us, and I feared we should have ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... kind and stock." "His punishment is certain," said Lucifer, "but do thou, sirrah, give clear and ready answer to these charges; or by hopeless Hell I will—." "I have led hither," said he, "many a soul since Satan was in the Garden of Eden, and I ought to understand my business, better than this upstart accuser." "Blood of infernal firebrands," cried Lucifer, "did I not bid thee answer clearly and readily?" "By your leave," said the demon, "I have preached a hundred times, and have denounced many of the various ways that lead to your confines, and yet at the same breath, have quietly ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... Uprightly rekte, honeste. Uprightness rekteco, honesteco. Uproar bruego, tumulto. Uproot elradikigi. Upset renversi, renversigxi. Upshot rezultato. Upside down renversite. Upstairs supre. Upstart elsaltulo. Up to (until) gxis. Up to now gxis nun. Urban urba. Urbane gxentila. Urchin bubo. Urge urgxi. Urgent urgxa. Urine urino. Urinal urinejo. Urn urno. Us nin. Usage uzo—ado. Use ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... angrily, "as to serving Eustace, the clerk, no older than myself, half a head shorter, and a mere landless upstart, that my father's ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the moon, I sicken at the sun. Wound up at twelve at noon, his clock goes right; Mine better goes, wound up at twelve at night. Then in oblivion's grateful cup I drown The galling sneer, the supercilious frown, The strange reserve, the proud, affected state Of upstart knaves grown rich, and fools grown great. No more that abject wretch[93] disturbs my rest, Who meanly overlooks a friend distress'd. 90 Purblind to poverty, the worldling goes, And scarce sees rags an inch beyond his nose; But from a crowd can single out his Grace, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... caused the unfortunate discovery that she had played the waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by personal inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae—that treacherous upstart—that she had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great importance to the incident—the cheerful souls at the Three Mariners having exhausted its aspects long ago—such was Henchard's haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed was regarded as little less ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... downright scandalous to see This unknown upstart master of the house— This vagabond, who hadn't, when he came, Shoes to his feet, or clothing worth six farthings, And who so far forgets his place, as now To censure everything, and ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... game on a scale too big for the fellow's limited resources, and yet—it might be well to study the maps. Yes, and it was like Gray's effrontery to pay deliberate court to "Bob" Parker, knowing his rival's feelings toward the girl. Another insult! The upstart certainly possessed an uncanny dexterity in pricking armor joints. But what if Gray were in earnest? "Bob" had become a wonderfully desirable creature, she was the most attractive girl in ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... smothered in his own volumes; and victual shops where you could almost feed yourself for two or three sous; and people sitting outdoors drinking wine, as if at a general festival. I thought Paris had comfort and prosperity—with hereditary kings overthrown and an upstart in their place. Yet the streets were dirty, with a smell ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point out to him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of that committee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked that he might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recently been raised. With glee—with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimous that it could be heard across the street—the ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... this was hopeless. They accepted nothing that did not come through their own official channels. And why should he waste time on these obscure people? Why should he undertake to upset their racial happiness? Nobody, least of all he, could change their attitude about the upstart Yankee and his upstart dollars. The Buchers held themselves too far above mere money and ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... turmoil and stress of the thirty years which followed Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire between them. The rest—transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction over all the East—never mattered long to the world at large and matter not at all here and now. The end of the fourth century sees Seleucus of Babylonia lording it over the most part of West ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... universal votes of the assembly; for such is the iniquity of the times, that though the head be covered with grey hairs, yet nothing is allowed to the reverence of antiquity, when encountered by a proud and upstart novelty. The other city is now so far neglected, that the ruins or footsteps of its magnificence are scarce remaining, any more than of Verulam, as is most elegantly set forth by our noble poet Spenser in his verses on that subject; the latter ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... German-looking lettering upon a pink or yellow wall and an awkward summerhouse in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbors by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month of June, American travelers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevey assumes at this period some of the ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... in themselves only a source of weakness. Yet they could enlist powerful allies in the cause of reaction. Heathenism was still a living power in the world. It was strong in numbers even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart on Caesar's throne. The favour of the gods had built up the Empire, and men's hearts misgave them that their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still an established religion, the Emperor still its official head. ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... his wife's grandfather was a dean; he has the presentation of the living, which is now in the hands of his brother Ned; and he has himself all the great tithes which, in the days of popery, belonged to it. He loves it all the better, because he thinks that the upstart dissenters want to pull it down; and he hates all upstarts. And what! Is it not the church of the queen, and the ministers, and all the nobility, and of all the old families? It is the only religion for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... mirth which it is needless to say was echoed and reechoed till it seemed it could not cease. Only a few ventured to mutter under breath: "The Hellene will have a subsatrapy in the East before the season is over and a treasure of five thousand talents! Mithra wither the upstart!" ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... released from the constraints of all law. They harbored jealousy and distrust of the admiral as a foreigner. The cavaliers and hidalgos, of whom there were too many in the expedition, contemned him as an upstart, whom it was derogatory to obey. From the first moment of their landing in Hispaniola, they indulged the most wanton license in regard to the unoffending natives, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, had received the white men as messengers from Heaven. Their outrages, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... Strange, that the bar was off the door, and, as I came to it, a fellow with a ream on his back laboured out. I had expected naught but the desolation and silence which I last remembered in the place, and it staggered me to find all going on as before. No doubt here was some upstart printer, standing in my late master's shoes and working at ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... circumstances, to accept any future invitations to her house, for I overheard a conversation between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Montgomery which I believe was intended to reach my ears, and consequently wounded and mortified me very much. I was ridiculed and denounced as a 'poor upstart and interloper,' who was being smuggled into society far above my position in life, and pronounced an avaricious schemer, intent on thrusting myself upon Mr. Leigh's notice, and ambitious of marrying him for ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... Jack, standing erect in his parti-colored pulpit with a sounding-board over his head; but he is a gay deceiver, a wolf in sheep's clothing, literally a "brother to dragons," an arrant upstart, an ingrate, a murderer of innocent benefactors! "Female botanizing classes pounce upon it as they would upon a pious young clergyman," complains Mr. Ellwanger. A poor relation of the stately calla lily one knows Jack to be at ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... to stable the stone chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no more cats; and conscious of his collar he ignored his old companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to recognize the upstart, and from that hour, except for human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with no care but to support it solemnly. Are we to condemn or praise this self-made ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... adventurers with whom every part of the country swarmed. An army of forty thousand men, of various races and religions, Mahrattas, Rohillas, Jauts, and Afghans, were speedily assembled round him; and he formed the design of overthrowing the upstart whom the English had elevated to a throne, and of establishing his own authority throughout Bengal, Orissa, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... son's audacity seemed to have bereft Ralph Mainwaring of the power of speech, but now he demanded in thunderous tones, while his face grew purple with rage, "What do you mean, sir, by daring to address such language to me? You impudent upstart! let me tell you that you had best ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... B.C.), the secular law had fully asserted its supremacy on its own ground, and it was the dignity and influence, not the power of the post, that made the pontificate so great an object of ambition, and so inaccessible to upstart candidates. Even for Cicero to obtain a seat in the college of augurs was no easy task, although he had already won his way to the consulship and been hailed as the saviour ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... son at Oxford and was evidently a rural parson of the good old high-and-dry sort; but as I happened to speak of the sermons of the day, he burst out in a voice gruff with theological contempt and hot toddy: "Did you hear that young upstart this afternoon? Did you ever hear such nonsense? Why couldn't he mind his own business, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... that chooses to take hold of him. I'll tell you one thing: Joe Appleby's birthday party is to come off in a few days, and I'll bet you a fish-line to a button that Master Benny won't get near enough to it to smell the ice-cream. How will that make the little upstart feel?" ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... heels, and the Englishman leapt aside to escape the rebound. Larralde was fleet of foot despite his meagre limbs, and leapt over such obstacles as he could perceive, with the agility of a monkey. He darted into the lighted doorway—the entrance to the palatial mansion of an upstart politician. The large doors were thrown open, and the hall-porter stood in full livery awaiting the master's carriage. Larralde was already in the patio, and Conyngham ran through the marble-paved entrance hall, before the porter realised what was taking place. There was no second exit ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;— Shall not carv'd tables serve my turn, But all must be of buhl? Give grasping pomp its double share,— I ask ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... speak to you any more so long as I live, rude boy—common street brat!" she said, biting her under-lip in ineffectual, petulant anger. "Listen, never as long as I live! So do not think it! Upstart, so to treat a lady ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Dornoch, "heed not the mawkish cries of this upstart stripling. Obey my bidding and spare ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... questions before which man's reason stands impotent; and imagination and emotion, those great auxiliaries to all deep religious feeling, were bid to stand rebuked in her presence, as hinderers of the rational faculty, and upstart pretenders to rights which were not theirs. 'Enthusiasm' was frowned down, and no small part of the light and fire ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... and so remained until Syria took them, lost them, reconquered them, and might have done with them utterly had not Juda Maccabaeus flaunted his banner, and the Roman eagles pounced upon their prey. Once more the Temple was rebuilt, superber than ever, and from the throne of David, Antipas saw the upstart that was his father ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... encomiums of him, one goes back to the days when we ourselves were as loud and mad in his dispraise. Who does not remember his own personal hatred and horror, twenty-five years ago, for the man whom we used to call the "bloody Corsican upstart and assassin?" What stories did we not believe of him?—what murders, rapes, robberies, not lay to his charge?—we who were living within a few miles of his territory, and might, by books and newspapers, be made as well acquainted with his merits or demerits ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Angus turned red as a beet. Here was this upstart new boy with an air of questioning his authority. By means of Angus' ability to give any boy in the neighbourhood a sound drubbing if necessary he had become the recognized leader. Evidently this new boy needed to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... the speech in which, explaining the genesis of the Household Suffrage Act, he used the words, "I educated my party." A few years later the whole party was proud of having been educated by him; but when he made this speech his words were regarded as an insolent display of vanity on the part of an upstart who had elbowed his way to the front at the expense ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... he is a blawsted upstart," said Paulding, lazily puffing at his cigarette. "He needs to be called down, ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama, the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What was the use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect a few cracks in the craniums belonging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... own family Paul had behaved in a most exemplary manner, affording thereby the strongest proof that though he had risen he was no upstart. The numerous members of his family and the men who had married into it nearly all had to thank him for their advancement or actual support. Some were employed on his estate, others he had trained ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... at these words. "Prate not to me," he said. "Thou art an upstart who wouldst teach their duty to thy betters—ay, puffed up with light-won fame, like a feather on the breeze. But I say this: the breeze shall fail, and thou shalt fall upon the goose's back once more. ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... Hohenzollern, Protestant against Catholic, Ultramontanes beholding the reign of Anti-Christ; Guelphs and Wittelsbachs, protesting their own peculiar and ancient lineage against self-seeking latter-day upstart aristocrats! ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... become poor, always makes us say: Is not that too bad? Columbus had many enemies in Spain. The nobles of the court, the men who had lost money in voyages to the Indies, the people whose fathers and sons and brothers had sailed away never to return, could not say anything bad enough about "this upstart Italian," ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks

... said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited thing, but I'm sure I ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... Unsettled boundaries. New Zealand. Hunter River. Midnight alarm. Ludicrous scene. Changes in Officers of ship. Leave Sydney. Port Stephens. Corrobory. Gale at Cape Upstart. Magnetical Island. Halifax Bay. Astonish a Native. Description of country. Correct chart. Restoration Island. Picturesque arrival. Interview with the Natives from Torres Strait. Their weapons. Shoal near Endeavour River. Discover good passage through Endeavour Strait. Booby Island. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... inheritance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of Greene IN ONE PART OF HIS TIRADE, 'an upstart crow beautified in our feathers,' probably refers to Shakespeare as an actor only, but Greene goes on to insult him as a writer. Judge Webb will not recognise him as a writer, and omits that ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... attract particular attention. The fact became apparent that it was surely superseding the English game of cricket, and the adherents of the latter game looked with ill-concealed jealousy on the rising upstart. There were then, as now, persons who believed that everything good and beautiful in the world must be of English origin, and these at once felt the need of a pedigree for the new game. Some one of them discovered that in certain features it resembled an English game ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... something had gone amiss; and what it was the apprentices soon learned from the smith himself. Never, until lately, had any one questioned Mimer's right to be called the foremost smith in all the world; but now a rival had come forward. An unknown upstart—-one Amilias, a giant of Burgundy—had made a suit of armor, which, he boasted, no stroke of sword could dint, and no blow of spear could scratch; and he had sent a challenge to all other smiths, both in the Rhine country and elsewhere, to equal that piece of workmanship, or else acknowledge themselves ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... the barn, but I didn't see any one there but that ugly little upstart, Bully the English Sparrow, and he wanted to pick a fight with me right away." Tommy ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess

... preparing of the decoction, the care of the medicine during the continuance of the treatment, and the disposal of what remains after the treatment is at an end. In the arrangement of details the shaman frequently employs the services of a lay assistant. In these degenerate days a number of upstart pretenders to the healing art have arisen in the tribe and endeavor to impose upon the ignorance of their fellows by posing as doctors, although knowing next to nothing of the prayers and ceremonies, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... elevation of fourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eight feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the Third are the guilty agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse the sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. [63] A similar reproach is applied to the Barberini; and the repetition of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the Coliseum was placed under the safeguard of religion by the most ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... it behoves every lover of literature to declare himself, and to furnish his quota of facts or arguments corrective of this upstart paradox. It is under the influence of that sentiment that I submit, for consideration in the proper quarter, some short extracts from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various

... of the works a vain young upstart," Mrs Parkyn said to her husband. "I cannot think how you keep your temper with such a popinjay. I hope you will not allow yourself to be put upon again. You are so sweet-tempered and forbearing, that everyone ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... asserted that the receiving of petitions, and granting their prayer, is the most enviable branch of royal prerogative? Alas! will the golden mean of reason never govern the practices of men? Must we for ever be the dupes of superstition, or the slaves of upstart authority? Are we doomed never to enjoy, in the ascendancy of our benevolent sympathies, a medium between the bigotry of the Crozier, the pride of the Sceptre, and the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... the altar of his guardianship, Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still? Step from the car; Alcmena's son, 'tis said, Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old. Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befall, 'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord, To whom wealth's harvest came beyond his hope, Is as a lion to his slaves, in all Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway. Pass in: thou hearest ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... Jim had barely escaped being drowned in the ocean of his own unreadiness and confusion under trying conditions. And she was right. Jim had never felt more the upstart uneducated farm-hand than when he was introduced to that audience by Professor Withers, nor more completely disgraced than when he concluded his remarks. Even the applause was to him a kindly effort on the part of the audience to comfort him in his failure. His only solace ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... white people," she cried, losing sight of all the brown faces. "They are some European race which colonized America long before that modern upstart, Columbus. They are undoubtedly the descendants of the Northmen who built the old mill at Newport and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... own!—And what return do I get for it? A new-comer only needs to wave a red flag before them, and all alike rush blindly to him. A pupil of Liszt?—bah! Who was Liszt? A barrel-organ of execution; a perverter of taste; a worthy ally of that upstart who ruined melody, harmony, and form. Don't talk ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... in this stoical thought of the half-pagan Christianity of the Renaissance, and does it satisfy religious souls? The upstart, the rogue, the tyrant, the rake, and all those haughty sinners who make an ill use of life, and whose steps are dogged by Death, will be surely punished; but can the reflection that death is no evil make ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... Oliva, a knight of Santiago, commendador of Ocana in the order, secretary to the king (secretario de camara), was loaded with plunder, and made an advantageous marriage with Ines de Vargas. As an insolent upstart he was peculiarly odious to the enemies of Lerma. Two religious persons, Juan de Santa Maria, a Franciscan, and Mariana de San Jose, prioress of La Encarnacion, worked on the queen Margarita, by whose influence Calderon was removed from the secretaryship in 1611. He, however, retained the favour ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... beast, as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best of the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. I fancy that the Colonel's ideas of smartness extended to the Band, and that he wanted to make it take part in the regular parade movements. A Cavalry Band is a sacred thing. It only turns out ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... Carolovingians, the duke and cardinal acted with the utmost insolence towards Catherine de' Medici, the mother-in-law of their niece. The Duchesse de Guise spared her no mortification. This duchesse was a d'Este, and Catherine was a Medici, the daughter of upstart Florentine merchants, whom the sovereigns of Europe had never yet admitted into their royal fraternity. Francois I. himself has always considered his son's marriage with a Medici as a mesalliance, and only consented to it under the expectation ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... did. Those who composed this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride. The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange clearly saw that they were putting ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... parcel from Mohill, why couldn't you let Brady bring it, who is in it constantly, instead of that upstart policeman, who'd think it more condescension to bring that from Mohill, than I would to be carrying a ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... I gladly share, And breathe a purer, freer air; No more by wealthy upstart spurn'd, The bread is sweet by labour earn'd; Indulgent heaven has bless'd the soil, And plenty crowns ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... Dictatorship for Lord Chatham'! How does this agree with the sentiments of Junius? In 1767-69 Junius had exhausted on Chatham his considerable treasury of insult. He is 'a lunatic brandishing a crutch,' 'so black a villain,' 'an abandoned profligate,' and he exhibits 'THE UPSTART INSOLENCE OF A DICTATOR!' This goes not well with Lyttelton's sentiments in 1774. True, but by that date (iii. 305) Junius himself had discovered 'that if this country can be saved, it must be saved by Lord Chatham's spirit, by Lord Chatham's abilities.' Lyttelton ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... he muttered. "Ay, if it will give me my place again! But for helping you to the land first and to her afterwards, as you'd have me, you schemer, you bog-trotter, it would make Tophet's dog sick! You d——d dirty son of an upstart! You'd marry my sister, would you? It will be odd"—he paused—"if I don't jink you yet, when I've made my use of you! I'm a schemer too, Mister Asgill, only—one at a time, one at a time! The Colonel first, and you afterwards! ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... well employed. Among other investments, he had placed half a million on interest in Holland,' and it was to be expected, therefore, that he should favour the cause of the republic, rebellious and upstart though it were. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a vulgar upstart, who tries to seduce her footman, Joseph Andrews. Parson Adams reproves her for laughing in church. Lady Booby is a caricature of Richardson's "Pamela."—Fielding, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Hinnissy, is turnin' th' heads iv our young men with his garish display. Befure this, counthries have perished because iv th' ostintation iv th' arrystocracy. We must presarve th' ideels iv American simplicity. We'll show this vulgar upstart that he can't humilyate his fellow citizens be goin' around dhressed up like an Asyatic fav'rite iv th' Impror Neero, be Hivens. How will we get at him?' says he. 'We'll put a tax iv sixty per cent. on ready made clothin' costin' less thin ten dollars ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... Possibly there was mingled with this feeling something too of the nature of envy—of a shy and obscure person from Moscow towards a brilliant officer from Petersburg. 'The prince,' I mused, 'is an upstart from the capital; he'll look down upon us....' I had not seen him for more than an instant, but I had had time to perceive that he was good-looking, clever, and at his ease. After pacing the room for some time, I ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... wished, And garner'd up their wisdom in my heart. Hear then, and mark me well; for thou wilt see, I long have known the grief that weighs thee down. The Viceroy hates thee, fain would injure thee, For thou hast cross'd his wish to bend the Swiss In homage to this upstart house of princes, And kept them staunch, like their good sires of old, In true allegiance to the Empire. Say, Is't not so, Werner? Tell me, am ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... may appear cold; but there, before the assembly, the defence of this man was stamped with an eloquent and grandiose sincerity, which at first, coming from this rustic, this upstart, without culture or education, with the voice of a boatman, first astonished and then singularly moved his hearers just on account of its wild, uncultivated style, foreign to every notion of parliamentary etiquette. Already marks of favour had agitated members, used to the flood of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham, justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... auction, to offer no rent but what is much below the real value. In countries where the public revenues are in farm, the farmers are generally the most opulent people. Their wealth would alone excite the public indignation; and the vanity which almost always accompanies such upstart fortunes, the foolish ostentation with which they commonly display that wealth, excite ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT, on the early German translation of Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, will, I am sure, be read with attention by all lovers of our early literature. My object in addressing you on the subject is to draw the attention of your foreign correspondents, and perhaps the notice of your new contemporary, to the great importance of discovering whether the Groatsworth ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various

... Chipotier, the Comte de Boisflottant, and the son of Pillardin, the lucky millionaire, successively come into the regiment, and these sprigs of lofty lineage, full of brilliancy and loquacity, naturally eclipsed the modest qualities of the obscure upstart soldier. Spending their life in cafes, overwhelmed with debt, loved by the women, they laughed among themselves at all the minutiae of the service, which they treated as beneath their notice, ridiculed their superiors, and especially ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... "This upstart soldier of fortune," reflected he, "has an unseemly habit of overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing Divine right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... of days you shall give to the mountain. The mountain, Washington, king of all this Atlantic coast,—at least till but just now, when some designing Warwick comes forward to press the claims of an ignoble Carolinian upstart, with, of course, a due and formidable array of feet and figures: but if they have such a mountain, where, I should like to know, has he been all these years? A mountain is not a thing that you can put away in your pocket, or hide ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... would be finishing it the night after he brought it home, indeed; and now the little upstart will be trying his hand at ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... noo, lad, o' us Covenanters an' oor lack o' lang-sufferin' an' oor defyin' the laws? Aren't these laws we ought to defy, but havena properly defied yet, laws illegally made by a perjured King and an upstart Cooncil?" ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... whether any tidings had arrived from Scotland; but nothing had come from thence for either the princesses, Sir Patrick, or Geordie of the Red Peel, so that the strange situation of the latter must needs continue as long as he insisted on being beholden for nothing to the English upstart, as he scrupled not to call Lord Suffolk, whose new-fashioned French title was an ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a milksop. He turned over in his mind, as the Sedleys did, the possibility of marriage between Joseph and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, was going to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody—a little upstart governess. "Hang it, the family's low enough already without her," Osborne said to his friend Captain Dobbin. "A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and know my own station: let ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... out violently. Was not this swollen-headed upstart trying to intimidate him by threats? But his strong instinct for prudence persuaded him to conceal his resentment. "Why the devil should ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... anxious than Mr. Adams to conclude a treaty. Yet he, too, had his grave difficulties to encounter. Spanish arrogance had not declined with the decline of Spanish strength, and the concessions demanded from that ancient monarchy by the upstart republic seemed at once exasperating and humiliating. The career of Jackson in Florida, while it exposed the weakness of Spain, also sorely wounded her pride. Nor could the grandees, three thousand miles away, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... only made against the noblesse, yet latterly, every rich and powerful family was included among the proscribed, and all the commercial houses of the first respectability were annihilated. These have never been replaced, and the upstart race of petty traders have not yet obtained the confidence of foreigners. The trade of France is therefore very confined; and even were opportunities now afforded of establishing a trade with foreign nations, it would be long before France could benefit ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... wonderment how the apples get inside the dumplings. How can a critic criticise a creator? The man who looks on writing things about the man who does things. But he criticises and artists owe him much. Neither in "ink-horn terms" nor in an "upstart Asiatic style" need the critic voice his opinions. He must be an artist in temperament and he must have a credo. He need not be a painter to write of painting, for his primary appeal is to the public. He is the middle-man, the interpreter, the vulgariser. The psycho-physiological ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... was correct—there was actually no other group of English-speaking people in the world. The English language was yet to be invented. Even Rome, the synonym for antiquity of culture, might still be an obscure village inhabited by a band of tatterdemalions under the leadership of an upstart Romulus. ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster

... preposterous that this young upstart foreman on a second-rate ranch like Landson's should deliberately ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... Well! It was the error of a noble heart, unsuspicious of fair words. And fair words enough had Frederick for the occasion. To think of such a man as HE, flaunting the banner of Germany in my face—he who, not many years ago, was under the ban of the empire as an ambitious upstart! He thought to scare me with the rustling of his dead laurel-leaves, and when he found that I laughed at such Chinese warfare, lo! he ran and hid himself under my mother's petticoats; and the two old crowns fell foul of one another, and their palsied old wearers plotted ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... first editorial against ballot box stuffing. In it the editor of the World had pledged that paper never to give up the fight for the people until such crookedness was stamped out. Big Tim had laughed until his paunch shook at the confidence of this young upstart and in impudent defiance had sent him a check for fifty dollars for ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... him, monsieur. He's an upstart who must once have had a fortune of his own; and he forgives nobody because, in order to live, he has been compelled to become a servant. A keeper is as much a servant as any other, isn't he? Upon ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... of Wallingford, to celebrate his marriage with the king's niece, the new-made earl, with a party of valiant knights, challenged a troop, which included the Earls of Hereford, Warenne, and Arundel, and utterly discomfited his rivals.[1] The victory of the upstart over magnates of such dignity was accounted for by treachery, and the prohibition of a coronation tournament, probably a simple measure of police, was ascribed to the unwillingness of Peter to give his opponents a legitimate opportunity of vindicating their ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... and Van Dyck as a painter of portraits. His colour is solidly and profoundly harmonious, without any false luxury and with no need of glitter. His magnificence is that of ancient hereditary fortunes. It has tranquillity, equality, and intimacy. We find no violent reds, greens, nor blues, no upstart glitter, no brilliant gew-gaws. All is restrained and subdued, but with a warm tone like that of old gold, or with a grey tone like the dead sheen of family silver. Gaudy and loud things will do for upstarts, but Don Diego Velasquez de Silva is too true a gentleman to make himself an object of remark ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... even before they were aware of the danger. He believed that the match was in every respect such as to flatter the ambition of Mr. Falkland; and he was stung even to madness by the idea of being deprived of the object dearest to his heart by this tramontane upstart. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... the justices for poaching, but they could make nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him—for they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay—though he be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man yet, spite ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... him talking? What did Toddling Johnny's son know about business? What was the world coming to? To hear him setting up his face there, and asking the best merchant in the town whether business was brisk! It was high time to put him in his place, the conceited upstart, shoving himself forward like ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... addressed the rebuke, "I want my sheep to be shorn, not strangled." But when Tiberius fell under the influence of Sejanus, and left to his hated minister the active control of the empire, harder times began for the provincials, and especially for the Jews. Sejanus was an upstart, and like most upstarts a tyrant; and for some reason—it may be jealousy of the power of the Jews at Rome—he hated the Jewish race and persecuted it. The great opponent of Sejanus was Antonia, the ward of Philo's brother, and a loyal friend to his people; and this, too, may have incited ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... you fancy that I shall be received as a substitute for the Prince Saracinesca your friends have known so long? Do you suppose that the vicissitudes of my life are unknown, and that no one will laugh behind my back and point at me as the new, upstart prince? Few people know me in Rome, and if I have any friends besides you, I have not been made aware of the fact. Pray consider that in doing what I ask, you would be saving me from ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... new President. Loubet was succeeded by Fallieres. The father of the new one was a great gormandizer of Pantagruelian dimensions. He died of overloading his stomach. The son made his career like a cautious upstart. He is well enough acquainted with himself to know that he is not a Machiavelli. Therefore, he does not boast of his sagacity, but rather of his integrity. A politician is irresistible to a crowd when he cries out ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... to be both," said Fenton; "that's a fact as well known, my good fellow, as the public stocks there below; and if Madam Fame reports aright, it's a pity you should be long out of them. Avaunt, you upstart! Before the close of your life, you will die with as many aliases as e'er a thief that ever swung from a gallows, and will deserve the swing, too, better ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... injured in the nicest point a woman can be injured? Shall I lend my name to mockery and scorn, by base acknowledgment of such deceit, or will you? Where would be my honor, then, stripped of my fair estates—my son—myself—beggars—dependent on the bounty of an upstart? Does honor ask you to bear this? It is a phantom sense of honor, unsubstantial as your father's shade, of which you just now spoke, that would prompt you to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... all abashed, said that he meant not Sophocles, but Euripides. Whereupon Porson drew from another pocket a copy of Euripides and challenged the upstart to find the quotation in question. Full of confusion, the fellow thrust his head out of the window of the coach and ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... do, but was jealous of her being a king's daughter. There was one person who did hate him most bitterly, and that was the Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV. and Richard III.: the same who, as I told you, encouraged printing so much. She felt as if a mean upstart had got into the place of her brothers, and his having married her niece did not make it seem a bit the better to her. There was one nephew left—the poor young orphan son of George, Duke of Clarence—but he had always been quite silly, and Henry ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... erstwhile Mademoiselle Folly. His quick eyes commended the charming figure that the lady made in her quaint frock against the crumbling garden wall. He spoke a very pretty speech about her appearance. But he found her haughty indeed considering that she was nothing but an upstart vaudeville performer. She had no manners at all, he decided, for she did not even suggest that he sit down. He actually had to make his ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... to substitute authority, or even long usage, for its innate genius and wisdom, and the requirements and practices that result from these, were to strike at its life, and to expose it to become subject to upstart usurpation, to deadening despotism. Worcester quotes from the Psalms the phrase, "They go astray as soon as they be born." We ask, Were not the translators of the Bible as liable to err in grammar as De Quincey, or Wordsworth, or Shelley? A writer in the English "National ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... the other dominated the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad likewise had no intention of allowing such a powerful competitor in its own province. These magnates viewed with intense amazement the effrontery of what they regarded as an upstart interloper. Although they had been constantly fighting one another for supremacy, these three ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... day, at dawn and at night, as the train tore a noisy tunnel in the quiet air, like the plebeian upstart it was, he sprinkled every grave, rising sometimes from a bed of pain, at other times defying wind and rain and hail. And for a while he believed that his holy device had deepened the sleep of his dead, ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... Nay she is too much so. There is that youngster here; that upstart; he who bolted upon us and mouthed his Pindarics in the Elysian Fields; the surly groom of the chamber. This fellow has insinuated himself into her favour, and the benignity of her soul induces her to treat him with as much respect as if he were ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... Though all is well if all obey And all have humble heart, Nor dare to hold in cursed doubt Those gems of truth the church lets out; But where's the apple-cart, And where's the sacred fiction gone, And who's to have the blame When any upstart takes a hand And, scorning what the priests have planned, Plays Harry ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... Graevenitz's court life, and finding no practical scheme, here is Graevenitz crying out that he will return to the army. Marie Graevenitz, after sobbing her heart out, flies into a rage and declares she will go whining to that upstart Geyling! And you, Monsieur de Stafforth, Hofmarshall and successful courtier, propose terms to a young husband in so unpolished a fashion, that even a peasant would be obliged to retort with the old affectation ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... smouldered within him; he took pleasure in the pain of others, and fomented strife to turn it to his own account. His abilities were but slender, and he had little force of character, but the natural instinct which draws the upstart towards money and power served him as well as fixity of purpose. Lucien and Merlin at once took a dislike to one another, for reasons not far to seek. Merlin, unfortunately, proclaimed aloud the thoughts that Lucien kept to himself. By the time the dessert was put ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... they will not prevent me from speedily avenging myself on the young upstart who has appeared so suddenly to claim you for a bride. Stay, you need not go so quickly, or toss your head in pride. I will stand by my word, and let him keep who wins. But I have a word to say to you, Branwen. ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... be found unfit for their places; and it is not impossible that, in the ruin imminent from our contentions for power, and in the necessary extinction both of ancient families and of generous sentiments, our consular fasces may become the water-sprinklers of some upstart priesthood, and that my son may apply for lustration to the son of my groom. The interest of such men requires that the spirit of arms and of arts be extinguished. They will predicate peace, that the people may be tractable to them; but a religion altogether pacific is the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... can she look higher than myself who am a lord of the line of Judah, and therefore greater far than an upstart prince or any other Egyptian, ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... court officers and many persons of culture and influence. Nevertheless, the predominating influence at the Ki[o]to court was that of Buddhism; and as the cult that winks at polygamy was less opposed to Hideyoshi's sensualism and amazing vanity, the illustrious upstart was easily made hostile to the alien faith. According to the accounts of the Jesuits, he took umbrage because a Portuguese captain would not please him by risking his ship in coming out of deep water and nearer land, and because there were Christian maidens of Arima who ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... always renewed for a lesser amount and was always demanding ready money to meet the difference. In later years Raymond, with this formidable weight still pressing upon him, received finally an offer of relief and liberation; some prosperous upstart, with plans of his own, said he would chance the property, mortgage and all, if paid a substantial bonus ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... have to accept the facts as reported. If only a Petronius had written that story! What a story it might have been! But there is only one Petronius in antiquity. His Trimalchio, former slave, successful profiteer and food speculator, braggard and drunkard, wife-beater—an upstart who arranged extravagant banquets merely to show off, who, by the way, also arranged for his funeral at his banquet (Apician fashion and, indeed, Petronian fashion! for Petronius died in the same manner) and who peacefully "passed out" ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... mother-in-law (he having married a woman forty years younger than himself, frequently the case here,) I gave some pills, brought me a melon, and said he should bring also some dates. I was conversing with a group at the time, and I took the opportunity of observing that doctors were paid amongst us. An upstart man angrily replied:—"Yes, but we are the chosen people of God! you Infidels are bound to serve us in every way, and ought to be thankful that you are so honoured as to be the servants and slaves of The ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... spectacle to the Princes of Germany, all accustomed to old habits of etiquette, to see an upstart sovereign treat them as subjects, and even oblige them to consider themselves as such. Those famous Saxons, who had made Charlemagne tremble, threw themselves on the protection of the Emperor; and the alliance of the head of the House of Saxony was not a ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... graciously brought us to the Hof in the midst of preparations for the festival of the Holy Father. On Sunday, June 18, the whole Catholic world was to celebrate the astounding fact of Pio Nono having exceeded the days of Saint Peter. We, who had come from Rome, where thirty upstart papers were denouncing time-honored usages and formulas, where many of the people had begun to sneer at the Papacy and to take gloomy views of the Church, were not prepared for the religious fervor and devotion ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... of lowly birth and of inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive in manner and shallow in artifice. The coarse but honest Snob still perhaps exists, and here and there he thrusts and pushes in the old familiar way; but more often than not the upstart who has won his way to wealth and consideration finds himself to his own surprise courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... son, raising up his little eyes to his mistress! Tom Tusher presuming to think of Castlewood's widow! Rage and contempt filled Mr. Harry's heart at the very notion; the honor of the family, of which he was the chief, made it his duty to prevent so monstrous an alliance, and to chastise the upstart who could dare to think of such an insult to their house. 'Tis true Mr. Esmond often boasted of republican principles, and could remember many fine speeches he had made at college and elsewhere, with WORTH and not BIRTH for a text: but Tom Tusher to take the place of the noble Castlewood—faugh! ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... was a considerable amount of dishonesty among them. These conditions apart, they were neither worse nor better than the men of their time. As the original Company gained stability by the incorporation of its upstart rival established in 1698,[2] which put an end to a condition of affairs that promised to be ruinous to both, and by the grant of perpetuity issued in the year following incorporation, there was a gradual improvement in the quality of their civil servants. Though no increase in the salaries of ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... Epaminondas, for it meant war with all the power of Sparta, relieved of all other enemies by the peace. Sparta had conquered and humbled Athens. It had conquered many other cities, forcing some of them to throw down their walls and go back again to their old state of villages. What upstart was this that dared defy its wrath and power? Thebes could hope for no allies, and seemed feeble against Spartan strength. How dared, then, this insolent delegate to fling defiance in the teeth of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... whose splendour has the dark spot of a secret and a sort of blackmail.... His glory did not come from the Crusades, but from the Great Pillage.... The oligarchs were descended from usurers and thieves. That, for good or evil, was the paradox of England; the typical aristocrat was the typical upstart. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd



Words linked to "Upstart" :   climber, pretentious, wise guy, disagreeable person, wiseacre, weisenheimer, junior, parvenue, kip, social climber, unpleasant person, gymnastic exercise, parvenu, nouveau-riche, arriviste



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