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Vainglorious   Listen
adjective
Vainglorious  adj.  Feeling or indicating vainglory; elated by vanity; boastful. "Arrogant and vainglorious expression."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vainglorious" Quotes from Famous Books



... bethought him of Lilly's book, and having mentioned it in the house, it was agreed that the astrologer should be summoned. Lilly attended accordingly, when Sir Robert Brook told him the reason of his summons, and called upon him to declare what he knew. This was a rare opportunity for the vainglorious Lilly to vaunt his abilities; and he began a long speech in praise of himself and his pretended science. He said that, after the execution of Charles I., he was extremely desirous to know what might from that time forth happen to the parliament and to the nation in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... visited by the ticklish Tarasconnais. Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a humorous light upon some of the more vivid phases of the Provencal character he selected Tarascon at a venture; not because the temperament of its natives is more vainglorious than that of their neighbours, or their rebellion against the "despotism of fact" more marked, but simply because he had to name a particular Provencal city. Tartarin is a hunter of lions and charmer of women, a true "produit du midi," as Daudet ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... primitive substance, but even undertakes to show by observation and experiment how others arise from it, and transformations occur. As to the discovery of the obliquity of the ecliptic by the aid of a gnomon attributed to Anaximenes, it was merely a boast of his vainglorious countrymen, and altogether beyond the scientific grasp of one who had no more exact idea of the nature of the earth than that it was "like a broad ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... his khaki riding suit loped gaily down the broad mountain road toward Ganlook, beside the black mare which carried John Tullis. Behind them rode three picked troopers from the House Guard. He had told Tullis of his vainglorious ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... and wherever the invaders attempted to land they were foiled. Repulsed, dashed to the ground, hewn down or shot down at the edge of the water, they were slain "by hundreds of heaps of corpses." "The infantry," says the monarch in his vainglorious inscription, set up in memory of the event, "all the choicest troops of the army of Egypt, stood upon the bank, furious as roaring lions; the chariot force, selected from among the heroes that were ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... liveries to thy servants, give them respectable and serviceable, rather than showy and gay ones, and divide them between thy servants and the poor; that is to say, if thou canst clothe six pages, clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven and pages for earth; the vainglorious never think of this new ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... followed within a few weeks by the death of the King of Navarre. His painful wound was not, perhaps, necessarily mortal, but the restless and vainglorious prince would not remain quiet and allow it to heal. He insisted on being borne in a litter through the breach into the city which had been taken under his nominal command. It was a sort of triumphal procession, marching to the sound of cymbals, and with other marks of victory. But the idle ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... preoccupation. If you will permit personal examples, you Americans have made ere now your national heroes out of men whose reasoning powers remained those of a college sophomore, who were unable to state an opponent's position with fairness, who lacked wholly the judicial quality, who were vainglorious and extravagant, who had, in short, the mind of an exuberant barbarian; but you instantly forget their intellectual defects in the presence of their abounding physical and moral energy, their freedom from any taint ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... after these events the Opposition was reinforced by the Duke of Argyle, a man vainglorious indeed and fickle, but brave, eloquent and popular. It was in a great measure owing to his exertions that the Act of Settlement had been peaceably carried into effect in England immediately after the death of Anne, and that the Jacobite rebellion which, during the following ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... act which has been variously estimated by historians. Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and condemned as a senseless and vainglorious work of destruction. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of Gallegos, De Soto received the intelligence that the chief Ucita had taken refuge in a forest, surrounded with swamps, not far from the Spanish camp. The vainglorious Porcallo was exceedingly indignant that the Indian chief should presume to hold himself aloof from all friendly advances. He entreated De Soto to grant him the privilege of capturing the fugitive. De Soto complied with ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... in some measure always conceived their national future as an ideal to be fulfilled. Their anticipations have been uplifting as well as confident and vainglorious. They have been prophesying not merely a safe and triumphant, but also a better, future. The ideal demand for some sort of individual and social amelioration has always accompanied even their vainest flights of patriotic prophecy. They may never have sufficiently realized that this better future, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... of the meeting immediately began. I profited by a short pause, however, to say a few words to my companions. I told them that there would soon be a serious demand on their modesty. We had performed a great and generous exploit, and it did not become us to lessen its merit by betraying a vainglorious self-esteem. I implored them all to take pattern by me; promising, in the end, that their new friends would trebly prize ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... 1847 the popular vote carried him once more to the House of Commons as member for Nottingham. He copied the tactics of O'Connell, but had neither the judgment nor the strength of the Irish dictator. He seems, indeed, to have been rather a poor creature of the vainglorious, bombastic type. A year or two later he became hopelessly insane, and in the vaporing heroics and parade of gasconade which marked him as the champion of the Chartists in the spring of 1848 it is charitable now to discover the first seeds of his ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... side on which lay the new home adopted by the Padre and himself. Hitherto this point of approach had been accepted as inaccessible for a horseman, nor, until now, had Buck seen reason to dispute the verdict. But, to-day, a sudden impulse had constrained him to make the attempt, not from any vainglorious reason, or from the recklessness which was so much a part of his nature, but simply that somewhere high up on the great table-land at the summit of the hill he hoped to find an answer to a riddle that was ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... "A Shave-tail in France." "I used to listen to you and Maury when we were young, and I used to be impressed because you were so consistently cynical, but now—well, after all, by God, which of us three has taken to the—to the intellectual life? I don't want to sound vainglorious, but—it's me, and I've always believed that moral values existed, and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the new Secretary? A most distinguished person, and quite an acquisition to the neighborhood." Such was the popular opinion of me among the young ladies and the liberal inhabitants. "Have you seen Mr. Softly, the new Secretary? A worldly, vainglorious young man. The last person in England to promote the interests of our new Institution." Such was the counter-estimate of me among the Puritan population. I report both opinions quite disinterestedly. There is generally something to be said on either side of every question; and, as for me, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... the men who accused him of having requested a moderation of the edicts. In truth, this most vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men perhaps scarcely comprehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, however, somewhat vainglorious immediately after his return, and excessively attentive to business. "He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged with petitioners, courtiers, and men of affairs, than even the palace of the Duchess. He ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... vainglorious tiring-maids, a queen in robes that murmured on the marble floor, she trod the gallery of a crumbling palace. In the courtyard, elephants trumpeted, and swart men with beards dyed crimson stood with blood-stained hands folded upon ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... see before us, and around us, and beneath us, are but a herd of slaves; gulled and vainglorious slaves!" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... wolf-faced worldlings, that nothing but riches, honors, and magistracy" can content "I (for my part) shall ever esteem it much more manly and sacred, in this harmless and pious study, to sit until I sink into my grave, than shine in your vainglorious bubbles and impieties; all your poor policies, wisdoms, and their trappings, at no more valuing than a musty nut." These sentiments were probably fresh in his heart when, in 1634, friendless and poor, at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... who evidently thought he was making a deep impression, and so went on all the more in his vainglorious boastings, "some of these here Continental nobility ain't worth a brass farthing. Why, sir, there's lots of respectable English merchants—tailors, for instance—and other quiet, unassuming gentlemen, who could buy out these ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... eyes His boastfulness will turn to prophecy, And his device will have foreshown his doom. To cope with Tydeus and that post to guard, I send the gallant son of Astacus, Whose noble blood is loyal to the rule Of honour and abhors vainglorious words, Whose chivalry fears nothing but reproach, Sprung from that remnant of the Earth-born race, Which the sword spared, a true son of the soil, Melanippus. Ares' hand the die will cast, But nature sends our soldier to the field To drive the ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... it over at dinner time. Jack was not at all vainglorious. Afterward, he hung around and presently climbed up in ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... 6. Vainglorious ostentation this way is very blamable. All ambition, all vanity, all conceitedness, upon whatever ground they are founded, are absolutely unreasonable and silly; but yet those being grounded on some real ability, or some useful skill, are wise ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a smile on his lips. He felt he had already become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around him. Why should he resist, or examine its ethics too closely? ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... turned from the awful sight as Billy Mallory's bloody and swollen eyes rolled up and set, while the mucker threw the inert form roughly from him. Quick to the girl's memory sprang Mallory's recent declaration, which she had thought at the time but the empty, and vainglorious boasting of the man in love—"Why I'd die for you, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... stately red-brick and freestone house upon the southern verge of the great plateau of moorland which ranges northward to the confines of Windsor Forest and eastward to the Surrey Hills. And this he did in no vainglorious spirit, with purpose of exalting himself above the county gentlemen, his neighbours, and showing how far better lined his pockets were than theirs. Rather did he do it from an honest love of all that is ingenious and comely, and as the natural outgrowth of an inquiring ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... fellow, who could turn his hand to anything, and cook — ah, he could cook! I believe that he would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous, vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we could more or less guard against it. So, after warning him of the undoubted risks he was exposing himself ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... boastful and vainglorious, would approach with his enormous horde; he would taunt us, no doubt, with his absurd 'Koos-takke,' which I verily believe has no meaning at all, and of which we need take no heed. In a few days, having exhausted the supplies, he would have to retire, and then ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... them leave of absence from dinner that they meant to go a long walk. He had not mentioned Appenfell, not from any want of straightforwardness, but because they thought that it might sound like a vainglorious attempt, and they did not want to talk about it until they had really accomplished it. But in truth if they had mentioned this as their destination, no wise master would have given them permission to go, unless they promised ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... the exploit of Hernando del Pulgar. However extravagant and fabulous it may seem, it is authenticated by certain traditional usages, and shows the vainglorious daring that prevailed between the youthful warriors of both nations, in that romantic war. The mosque thus consecrated to the Virgin was made the cathedral of the city after the conquest; and there is a painting of the Virgin beside ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... nothing." Paul acknowledges that he had to become a fool, something for which he had no desire, by reason of the necessity laid upon him to praise himself. The false apostles, as false spirits habitually do, delivered great, fine, splendid speeches to the multitude, in their vainglorious attempt to raise themselves above Paul, thereby to make contemptible and insignificant ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantly that he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace as any grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been more personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... and, it must be added, to his relief, also, his apprehensions proved to be groundless. The only emotions aroused in Noel Vanstone's mind by a perusal of the letter were a hearty admiration of his friend's idea, and a vainglorious anxiety to claim the credit to himself of being the person who carried it out. Examples may be found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found occasionally of a fool who is not cunning; but it may reasonably ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... and of England, had flowed, and were destined still to flow, for the gratification of a man who wanted the vulgar courage which was found in the meanest of the hundreds of thousands whom he had sacrificed to his vainglorious ambition? ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... children now came forward. The party stood for a moment exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few stones were thrown at long distances, and words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the direction of their home street. They began to give, each to each, distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane

... Jonadab Wixon, he'd stopped yellin', but his face was one broad, serene grin. His mouth, through the dust and the dirt caked around it, looked like a rain gully in a sand-bank. And, occasional, he crowed, hoarse but vainglorious. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Sanza was delighted at the verdict; but the other two went home rather crestfallen. Umanojo, although he had been worsted in the argument, bore no malice nor ill-will in his heart; but Banzayemon, who was a vainglorious personage, puffed up with the idea of his own importance, conceived a spite against Sanza, and watched for an opportunity to put him to shame. At last, one day Banzayemon, eager to be revenged upon Sanza, went to the Prince, and said, "Your lordship ought to see Sanza fence; his swordsmanship is ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... or combination of circumstances gave impulse to "the Board of Erin," I know not-whether it arose out of a vainglorious purpose to meet the Orangemen with a weapon of import similar to their own, or whether it was merely the love of young people to have association with the occult, I can merely conjecture—but it was only when Mr Joseph Devlin assumed the leadership of it that it began to acquire an influence in ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... grand columns, between which was the king and guards and select troops—all native Persians, ten thousand foot and ten thousand horse. From Sardis the hosts of Xerxes proceeded to Abydos, through Ilium, where his two bridges across the Hellespont awaited him. From a marble throne the proud and vainglorious monarch saw his vast army defile over the bridges, perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs. One bridge was devoted to the troops, the other to the beasts and baggage. The first to cross were the ten thousand household troops, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... drawing, the same refreshing humor and universal sympathy and comprehension. "The Story of Thomas Friis" undertakes to show, in the career of a Danish youth who is meant to be typical, the futility of the vainglorious imaginings with which the little nation has inflated itself to a size out of proportion to its actual historic role. In "The Old Pharmacy" the necessity of facing the changed reality of the modern world, instead of desperately hugging an expiring past, is enforced in ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... if we two could be To enjoy our days set wholly free; To the true life together bend our mind, And take a furlough from the falser kind. No rich saloon, nor palace of the great, Nor suit at law should trouble our estate; On no vainglorious statues should we look, But of a walk, a talk, a little book, Baths, wells and meads, and the veranda shade, Let all our travels and our toils be made. Now neither lives unto himself, alas! And the good suns we see, that flash and pass ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Nor did the vainglorious host deck the meal with little salt-shell or smooth cup; but all has been now abolished in shameful ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... once to the date, 1016, and there was the passage in the quaint mediaeval Latin. It was indeed a Hosmer who unwittingly had so nearly brought Edmond Ironside to grief. "Was I descended from the man?" queried Freeman. Quite proud that my story had been substantiated and perhaps a bit vainglorious over the fact that a man of my name had looked like a king, I was not slow in saying that I probably was, that my line for six hundred years after that date, honest yeomen, had lived near the spot, in the fields of Kent. Freeman assented to the probability, but it was suggested by others present ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... touch. It could only bring blessing to the one who was the friend of the angel's Lord, and it could bring only death to the other, who was His enemy. It could do nothing to the Apostle but cause his chains to drop from his wrists, nor anything to the vainglorious king ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Melancholy Man A Sailor A Soldier A Tailor A Puritan A Mere Common Lawyer A Mere Scholar A Tinker An Apparitor An Almanac-Maker A Hypocrite A Chambermaid A Precisian An Inns of Court Man A Mere Fellow of a House A Worthy Commander in the Wars A Vainglorious Coward in Command A Pirate An Ordinary Fence A Puny Clerk A Footman A Noble and Retired Housekeeper An Intruder into Favour A Fair and Happy Milkmaid An Arrant Horse-Courser A Roaring Boy A Drunken Dutchman ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... his side. Immediately on our appearance he would swing into the saddle and charge through the assembled rabble. Away we would go at a rapid pace down the streets of the town or village, to the utter amazement of the natives and the great satisfaction of our vainglorious zaptieh. As long as his horse was fresh, or until we were out of sight of the village, he would urge us on with cries of "Gellcha-buk" ("Come on, ride fast"). When a bad piece of road or a steep ascent forced us to dismount he would bring his horse to a walk, roll a cigarette, and draw invidious ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... when I say I share somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility that must animate your soul at the present time because of the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful or vainglorious, but, on the other hand, very humble, and gives me more faith in humanity and makes me more determined to work harder in the interest of all our people of both races regardless of race or color. I shall urge our people everywhere to manifest ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... time I had kept up the appearance of being hurt every few minutes, just as a precaution. Then even that had ceased and I had dropped into vainglorious apathy. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... forgotten while the dream lasted. The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be injured, and not advanced, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... rise, Leap forth at once, and snatch the golden prize; Inflame his woe, by bringing it so late, And stab him in the crisis of his fate. Since Adam's family, from first to last, Now into one distinct survey is cast; Look round, vainglorious muse, and you whoe'er Devote yourselves to fame, and think her fair; Look round, and seek the lights of human race, Whose shining acts time's brightest annals grace; Who founded sects; crowns conquer'd, or resign'd; Gave names to nations: or fam'd empires ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... shamed effort to brazen it out, followed by the amused stare of Gideon Whipple. And he had slunk back when the course was cleared, to be told the simple secret of hitting a golf ball. He would condescend to that for the sake, on a near day, of publicly humiliating a certain vainglorious jewellery dealer. But apparently now, while the secret was simple enough to tell—it took John McTavish hardly a score of burry words to tell it all—it was less simple to demonstrate. It might take him three ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... conscious of its great potential superiority over Canada, in men and in available resources. So evident, indeed, was the disparity, that the prevalent feeling was not one of reasonable self-reliance, but of vainglorious self-confidence; of dependence upon mere bulk and weight to crush an opponent, quite irrespective of preparation or skill, and disregardful of the factor of military efficiency. Jefferson's words have already been quoted. Calhoun, then a youthful ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... tell thee is true. The sons of Pandu are endued with great might. They are, again, fighting for their own sake. Why should not they, O Bharata, be able to slay thy troops. Thou, however, O king, art exceedingly covetous. Thou, O Kaurava, art deceitful. Thou art vainglorious and suspicious of everything. For this, thou suspectest even us. I think, O king, thou art wicked, of sinful soul, and an embodiment of sin. Mean and of sinful thoughts, thou doubtest us and others. As regards myself, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... for weeks, and all our provisions were mouldy or weevilly, and our water-casks warped and leaking so that we had to catch the rain in our shirts, we began to wonder what it was we had come for. The sea won't be mocked or threatened. She has ways of her own, the old witch, to tame the vainglorious. And 't is true enough," the old pilot went on with a quizzing look at Fernao on his insecure perch, "that sailors have a bad habit of doubling and trebling their recollections when they find anybody who will listen. I don't know ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey



Words linked to "Vainglorious" :   proud, swelled, big



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