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Dubious   /dˈubiəs/   Listen
Dubious

adjective
1.
Fraught with uncertainty or doubt.  Synonym: doubtful.  "It was doubtful whether she would be admitted" , "Dubious about agreeing to go"
2.
Open to doubt or suspicion.  Synonyms: doubtful, dubitable, in question.  "He has a dubious record indeed" , "What one found uncertain the other found dubious or downright false" , "It was more than dubitable whether the friend was as influential as she thought"
3.
Not convinced.



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"Dubious" Quotes from Famous Books



... which the claim to a place with it is obvious; while there may be other species which straggle farther from this central knot, and which yet are clearly more connected with it than with any other. And even if there should be some species of which the place is dubious, and which appear to be equally bound to two generic types, it is easily seen that this would not destroy the reality of the generic groups, any more than the scattered trees of the intervening plain prevent our speaking intelligibly of the distinct forests of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... yawl glides on the water among hayricks and whetting scythes, one of these gallant barges floated beside us with the name on its stern—S.E.C.P.T.E.R.—dubious in import, we allow, whether it means that the stout matter-of-fact lighter has been christened as a shadowy ghost, or a royal symbol. The veriest urchin steers her, with a little fat hand on the heavy tiller twelve feet long, and a hunch of good rye-bread ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... unadorned walk from one point to another was intolerable, and he had not gone a block without achieving some slight remedy for the tameness of life. An electric-light pole at the corner, invested with powers of observation, might have been surprised to find itself suddenly enacting a role of dubious honour in improvised melodrama. Penrod, approaching, gave the pole a look of sharp suspicion, then one of conviction; slapped it lightly and contemptuously with his open hand; passed on a few paces, but turned abruptly, and, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... that I had strolled hither in the afternoon, that sleep had overtaken me as I sat, and that I had awakened a few minutes before his arrival. I could tell him no more. In the present impetuosity of my thoughts, I was almost dubious, whether the pit, into which my brother had endeavoured to entice me, and the voice that talked through the lattice, were not parts of the same dream. I remembered, likewise, the charge of secrecy, and the penalty denounced, if I should rashly divulge ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... expect from her Czarish Majesty [the Empress, he always calls her, knowing she prefers that title]. It seems to me, Madam, that it would be precipitate procedure should I wish to engage you in an Enterprise, which appears to myself absolutely dubious (HASARDEE), unless approved by that Princess. As to me, Madam, I have not the ascendant there which you suppose: I act under rule of all the delicacies and discretions with a Court which separated itself from my Enemies when all Europe wished ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... its sap and cells. The trees had drawn their bark close around them, wearing an inviolate tapestry across those portals through which so many a stranger to them had passed in and passed out; and henceforth the dubious oracle of the forest—its one reply to all man's questionings—became the Voice ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... and cat-calls greeted his success. Sydney and Katrina and Mrs. Carroll clapped their hands, and the Doctor, folding in his handkerchief the somewhat dubious treasure, rode over to the apple-tree and presented it to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... chiefs. The situation of Burnes in relation to the Dost was presently complicated by the arrival at Cabul of a Russian officer claiming to be an envoy from the Czar, whose credentials, however, were regarded as dubious, and who, if that circumstance has the least weight, was on his return to Russia utterly repudiated by Count Nesselrode. The Dost took small account of this emissary, continuing to assure Burnes that he cared for no connection except with the English, and Burnes professed to his Government ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... blow given him by Dick at the dinner, and burned to avenge the affront. He tingled with impatience to get another look at the dubious check which promised such unexceptional possibilities of retaliation if, as he suspected and hoped, it was a forgery. Dick Swinton, publicly denounced as a felon, could not possibly hold up his head again; and as a rival in love he would be remorselessly wiped out. The young upstart ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... to respond to their charm. What Shakespeare knew, and Scott loved, and Bossetti echoes, can hardly be beneath the admiration of high school and university students. Rugged language, broken metres, absurd plots, dubious morals, are impotent to destroy the vital beauty that underlies all these. There is a philosophical propriety, too, in beginning poetic study with ballad lore, for the ballad is the germ of all ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... Cloud wondered just what she would better do about the afternoon hour with this uncongenial guest on hand, but Leslie and Allison, after a hasty whispered consultation in the dining-room with numerous dubious glances toward the guest, ending in wry faces, came and settled down with their Bibles as usual. There was a loyalty in the quiet act that almost brought the tears to Julia Cloud's eyes, and she rewarded them with a ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... crowns for propaganda purposes), yet had a way of borrowing a coat or cap from Serbian soldiers and, arrayed in these, holding up pedestrians after nightfall. Roth had therefore been granted the right to rule, but—save for the dubious guard—his power was only that which the Serbian or French authorities would give him. He issued many orders to the mayor, some of which were very questionable, as for instance when he sent provisions out of the Banat to Hungary. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... BELLOC LOWNDES'S young ladies enjoy singularly poor luck, as is shown notably by their habit when in foreign parts of picking up the worst people and generally surrounding themselves with a society that it would be flattery to call dubious. The latest victim to this tendency is Lily, heroine of The Lonely House (HUTCHINSON). It was situate, as you might not expect from its name, at Monte Carlo, and Lily had come there as the paying guest of a courtesy uncle and aunt of foreign ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various

... description of various other dubious businesses that had attracted Eliphalet Congdon when Archie, nervously twisting a folded newspaper, brought him back to the girl who had played so mischievous a ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... recover some of his shattered nerve in view of the detective's airy optimism. Still, he was shaken and dubious. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... come out alive. There's be an accident, and the nomads would be given the dubious credit for having killed you." He came to his feet again. "I've got to think about this. I'll drop in ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... remember the unedifying descriptions of her itinerant priests that Lucian and Apuleius[1] have left. Led by an old eunuch of dubious habits, a crowd of painted young men marched along the highways with an ass that bore an elaborately adorned image of the goddess. Whenever they passed through a village or by some rich villa, they went through their sacred exercises. To the shrill accompaniment of their Syrian ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... calumny so shameless as the attempt of the Hon. Prop., he might say the calculated and cynical attempt of the Hon. Prop., to seduce from their faith the tenacious acolytes of Sport by the now threadbare recital of the dubious and, on his own showing, the anaemic enticements of Science. The War had proved that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various

... rid of the intruder by postponing their meeting to a later hour, and taking care that, when Prynne reappeared, he should be turned back. The House that day passed an order that none should sit in it but genuine Rumpers, appointing a committee to ascertain who these were and to report on dubious cases; and the order was affixed to the doors outside. For a day or two Prynne and others still haunted the lobbies; but at length they desisted, Prynne taking his revenge by at once printing The Republicans' and Others' spurious Old Cause briefly ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... of service to his foe. Nothing could be more nobly planned than the first meeting, and indeed the whole relations, of these magnanimous and worthy opponents, Luria and Tiburzio. There is a certain intellectual fascination for Browning in the analysis of mean natures and dubious motives, but of no contemporary can it be more justly said that he rises always and easily to the height and at the touch of an heroic action or ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... ranged them in order of battle. The signal was given, and he attacked them with extraordinary vigour; nor was the opposition inferior. Much blood was shed on both sides, and the victory long remained dubious; but at length it seemed to incline to the sultan of Harran's enemies, who, being more numerous, were upon the point of surrounding him, when a great body of cavalry appeared on the plain, and approached the two armies. The sight of this fresh ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... her self-accusing grief. And now, as the brother and sister sat at breakfast one autumn morning, came the surprise of which we speak. It came in the form of a letter, which, before opening it, "Cobbler" Horn regarded, for some moments, with a dubious air. The arrival of a letter at his house was a rare event; and but for the fact that the missive bore his name and address, he would have thought there was a mistake, and, even now, the addition of the sign, "Esq." to his name left the matter in ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... anything other than a bird could make the ascent. It looked a sheer wall from where the girls stood, the projections and jutting crags appearing perfectly flat to them. Even Harriet Burrell and Miss Elting were a little dubious. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge

... general, a blunt military chieftain, was at his side. A black bushy beard, some inches in advance of his honest good-humoured face, was placed in strong contrast with the wary, pale, and somewhat dubious aspect of the priest. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... his salary than gave the other and more outspoken professor whose chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles a full dinner-pail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering more for a vote than the dubious dollar of the opposing party. Even a money-lender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest and ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... wind-tossed vessel was thrown upon a coast far away, which was called Iceland the Great. Then, again, we read of a young Norwegian, Eric the Red, not apparently averse to a brawl, who killed his man in Norway and fled to Iceland, where he kept his dubious character; and again outraging the laws, he was sent into temporary banishment—this time in a ship which he fitted out for discovery; and so he sailed away in the direction of Gunnbiorn's land, and found it. He whiled away three years on its coast, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... said the doctor with a carelessness which was somewhat dubious in its character. "It is very well for those who find the subject pleasant. I confess I have never studied ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... the maid. But women ain't throwed off their guard easily. If they are in a dark place, they can feel their way out, if they can't see it. So says she, dubious like: ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... consider that the doctrines upon which it (Purgatory) is pretended reasonable, are all dubious, and disputable at the very best. Such are ... that the taking away the guilt of sins does not suppose the taking away the obligation to punishment; that is, that when a man's sin is pardoned, he may be punished without the guilt of that sin ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... penetrating study, 'Mark Twain a Century Hence', published at the time of Mr. Clemens' death, Professor H. T. Peck makes this observation: "We must judge Mark Twain as a humorist by the very best of all he wrote rather than by the more dubious productions, in which we fail to see at every moment the winning qualities and the characteristic form of this very interesting American. As one would not judge of Tennyson by his dramas, nor Thackeray by his journalistic chit-chat, nor ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... and so doubtless do our readers, in passing from the dark tragic story of Swift, and his dubious and unhappy character, to contemplate the useful career of a much smaller, but a much better man, Isaac Watts. This admirable person was born at Southampton on the 17th of July 1674. His father, of the same name, kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen, and was a man of intelligence and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope must be cast, and—well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and—no! not butter—five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and significations—well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual venture in this particular craft: ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... Pateley, and as he reflected on the scene he had just left, Stamfordham surrounded by a bevy of attractive ladies beseeching him to give them an autograph, to buy a buttonhole, to drink their tea, to put into their raffles, and to have his fortune told, he felt still more dubious as to the mission he was engaged upon. Fortunately Rachel realised none of ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... be, there is no disposition to accept their ascendancy.[2303] If one of them is admitted into the Assembly it is not for the purpose of giving advice, but to furnish information, reply to interrogatories, and make protestations of his zeal in humble terms and in a dubious position.[2304] By virtue of being a royal agent he is under suspicion like the King himself, and he is sequestered in his bureau as the King is sequestered in his palace.—Such is the spirit of the Constitution: by force of the theory, and the better to secure a separation ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... was, she said, Mrs. Quiverful of Puddingdale, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Quiverful. She wished to see Mrs. Proudie. It was indeed quite indispensable that she should see Mrs. Proudie. James Fitzplush looked worse than dubious, did not know whether his lady were out, or engaged, or in her bedroom; thought it most probable she was subject to one of these or to some other cause that would make her invisible; but Mrs. Quiverful could sit down ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... painfully conscious of the greatness of the chance that we have scarcely even approached the truth. Neither diary nor letters guide us; naught save reports of occasional pithy, pointed, pregnant remarks, evidence the most dubious, liable to be colored by the medium of the predilections of the hearer, and to be reshaped and misshaped by time, and by attrition in passing through many mouths. The President was often in a chatting mood, and then seemed not remote from his companion. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... sufficiently complex to task the united powers of the historian, philologist, and anthropologist, merely to trace out the multitudinous lines of its evolution, and to determine the sources of its various elements: primeval polytheisms and fetishisms, traditions of dubious origin, philosophical concepts from China, Korea, and elsewhere—all mingled with Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The so-called 'Revival of Pure Shinto'—an effort, aided by Government, to restore the cult to its archaic simplicity, by ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... as a feat beyond my prowess to convict this woman in her own eyes of a dubious and considering veracity. So I merely wondered, in tones that would easily reach her, how the gentlemen might relish her diplomacy when they discovered it on the morrow. I preceded the word diplomacy with a slight and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... annoyance at Mrs. Roby's unwonted assumption of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club would do so in the person of ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... inherited the ancestral 'vices.' 'What he appeared generally to be was seldome what he really was.' His portrait, {149a} in Highland dress, displays a handsome, fair, athletic young chief, with a haughty expression. Behind him stands a dark, dubious-looking ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... serious one. The natives consider strangers as their lawful prey, and they lately managed to give a strong punitive expedition a good deal of trouble. In fact, as they're in a rather restless mood, the authorities were very dubious about letting me go inland, and in spite of the care I took, they got two of my colored carriers. Shot them with ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... of King Alfred, had not imaginations bold enough to lay a plan of burglary. How could they have spent the money in their own village without betraying themselves? They would be obliged to "run away"—a course as dark and dubious ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... to that none too rare class of prominent citizens who once every so often respond to the call of the wild within them by going to a nearby city where they are not known and giving themselves over to the dubious delights of a spree. Publication of this fact alone would prove sufficient to injure Lawrence socially and in the commercial world. The old case of the Spartan lad—Carroll reflected. The disgrace lay in ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... sat down. And Mr. Westgate rose: He wanted—he said—to know more, much more, about this proposition, which to his mind was of a very dubious wisdom.... 'Ah!' thought the secretary, 'I told the old boy he must tell them more'.... To whom, for instance, had the proposal first been made? To him!—the chairman said. Good! But why were Pillins selling, if freights were to go up, as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the girl; and Bran, after looking on at the transfer with a somewhat dubious face, seemed to satisfy herself that all was right, and put her head contentedly under the ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... three years afterwards. As to the residence of Bartholomew in London, it was not until after Columbus had made his propositions of discovery to Portugal, if not to the courts of other powers. Granting, therefore, that he had subsequently heard the dubious stories of Vinland, and of the fisherman's adventures, as related by Zeno, or at least by Marcolini, they evidently could not have influenced him in his great enterprise. His route had no reference to them, but ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... than could have been expected. But Scotland!—the Highlands!"—Mr Sudberry's look at this point induced his wife to come to a full stop. The look was not a stern look,—much less a savage look, as connubial looks sometimes are. It was an aggrieved look; not that he was aggrieved at the dubious reception given by his spouse to the arrangement he had made;—no, the sore point in his mind was that he himself entertained strong doubts, as to the propriety of what he had done; and to find these doubts reflected in ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... were inclined to be fussy; You turned at inferior rye; You moped at a dubious vintage And shrieked if the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer the golden age than the present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... irregular lover, yet he was a priest, and not a musician. Can we then blame harmony and melody for the humming-bird "amours" of the Abbe Liszt,—for the many women he made material love to from his early youth,—for the very dubious honesty of his bearing toward the Comtesse d'Agoult and the Princess Wittgenstein, with whom he debated the formalities of marriage without hesitating ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... crafty look in the old man's eyes as he spoke, and ages of dubious reasoning and purpose showed in their ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... him. "The affair happened in a very dubious sort of place. I don't think I shall hear anything more about it unless ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a toe by ainhum. Eyles reports a case in a negro in whom the second finger was affected. Mirault, at Angiers, speaks of a case in which two fingers were lost in fifteen days, a fact which makes his diagnosis dubious. Beranger-Ferraud has seen all the toes amputated, and there is a wax model by Baretta, Paris, in the Army Medical Museum at Washington, in which all the toes of the right foot have been amputated, and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... a remove of time, the poet's wounded pride finds expression in this singular theory—or, rather, in this more than dubious piece ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... House government is the division of the flock by the establishing of an age line. The control of the youngsters is almost always vigorously enforced, and though the logical principles involved are sometimes rather dubious they are adequate from the fact that they are never open to argument. Occasionally, however, under the leadership of some president either too indolent or incapable of leadership, this strict surveillance over the habits and ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... hidden appetites, are ours, And they must have their food. Our childhood sits, Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne That hath more power than all the elements. I guess not what this tells of Being past, 510 Nor what it augurs of the life to come; [Q] But so it is, and, in that dubious hour, That twilight when we first begin to see This dawning earth, to recognise, expect, And in the long probation that ensues, 515 The time of trial, ere we learn to live In reconcilement with our stinted powers; To endure this state ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... look dubious, the uncle was threatening to pitch them out upon the road, when someone ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... 3rd edition of Madagascar, 1743, it farther appears that he continued "for some years before his death" to resort to the above-named house; "at which place several inquisitive gentlemen received from his own mouth the confirmation of those particulars which seemed dubious, or carried with them the air of romance." The period was certainly unpropitious for any but a writer of fiction, and Drury seems to have anticipated no higher rank for his Treatise, in point of authenticity, than that occupied by the several members of the Robinson Crusoe school. He, however, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... by, looking on. She had made no comment. Her expression was not cheerful. Turning suddenly about, Elizabeth saw the dubious look. ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... loss of the greater part of his fortune with resignation, and was even satisfied by the thought that he had at least effected the possession of the property for Mrs. Peyton. But when he found that those of his tenants who had bought under him had acquired only a dubious possession of their lands and no title, he had unhesitatingly reimbursed them for their improvements with the last of his capital. Only the lawless Gilroy had good-humoredly declined. The quiet acceptance of the others did not, unfortunately, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... schnaps to wine, as bilberries to grapes, as butter and cheese to roast and dessert, as mountains and levels, as leagues and miles. In the south or wine land prevails a lighter, sprightlier, tone of intercourse; in the land of beer and schnaps with its moist air, all seems more dubious and measured; and thus the moment of enjoyment passes over. The sex is livelier in the south and more complaisant, without on that account being more wanton. In the south there is everywhere more nature, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various

... noted, in passing, that young students and speakers always select the most tremendous subjects for their discourses. One advances in modesty as one advances in knowledge, and after eighteen years of platform work, I am far more dubious than I was at their beginning as to my power of dealing in any sense adequately with the problems of life.) The Dialectical Society had for some years held their meetings in a room in Adam Street, rented from the Social Science Association. When the members gathered as usual on February ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... house drawing-room and abounds in the little feminine touches that are so often best applied by the hand of man. There is nothing in the room inimical to the ladies, unless it be the cut flowers which are from the garden and possibly in collusion with it. The fireplace may also be a little dubious. It has been hacked out of a thick wall which may have been there when the other walls were not, and is presumably the cavern where Lob, when alone, sits chatting to himself among the blue smoke. He is ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... witness a sport which one would have thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry as, from modesty, poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place. It was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes for ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... a countenance of dubious import. He was neither merry nor sad, neither talkative nor taciturn. At one moment his face seemed to radiate hope; the next, he appeared to fall under a shadow of solicitude. When his hostess talked of her son, he plainly gave no heed; his replies ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... absolutely necessary in its administration. There is here a great distinction between money and other property, or money's worth. A menial servant, of whose honesty there is no proof, and even when it may be dubious, is habitually trusted with the care of property to a considerable amount, and the account rendered is seldom very rigorous; but, in the case of trusting with money, every precaution is first taken, as to being trust-worthy. Security ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... taverns have wholly disappeared. One of these, the Elephant, was wont to claim a somewhat dubious association with Hogarth. The artist is credited with once lodging under the Elephant's roof and with embellishing the walls of the tap-room with pictures in payment for a long overdue bill. The subjects were said to have included the first ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... near, a man, whom the careless glance of Helen's cousin took for a casual tourist about to view the ruins. Helen herself, and in the same moment, Irene, recognised Piers Otway. It seemed as though Mrs. Borisoff would not rise to welcome him; her smile was dubious, half surprised. She cast a glance at Irene, whose face was set in the austerest self-control, and thereupon not only stood up, but ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... his promise. The milk was brought in a dubious vessel, but the girl vowed she never tasted a more delicious beverage. They resumed their march, Irene's head dropped cozily to the region of Dick's heart, and that wayward organ thumped again ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... agents,'' including ambassadors. With the evolution of the diplomatic hierarchy, however, the term gradually sank until it was technically applied only to the lowest class of "diplomatic agents,'' without a representative character and of a status and character so dubious that, by the regulation of the congress of Vienna, they were wholly excluded from the immunities of the diplomatic service. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... were now open to us: back to Baku, thence to Tiflis, and over the mountains to Talriz,—very dubious on account of the snow; the second, from Baku to Astrabad, and thence via Mount Demavend,—still more dubious on account of bad landing as well as blocked passes; there remained to us Astara, and along the sea-beach (no road) to Enzelli, with swollen rivers ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... Davos; I have discoursed about it already, rather sillily I think, in the Pall Mall, and I mean to say no more, but the ways of the Muse are dubious and obscure, and who knows? I may be wiled again. As a place of residence, beyond a splendid climate, it has to my eyes but one advantage—the neighbourhood of J. A. Symonds—I dare say you know his work, but the man is far more interesting. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aspiring, and no wish beyond The bounded confines of her present state: Had counsell'd her, that even mines of wealth, Could purchase nothing to content the wise, Esteem or friendship, tenderness or love: That power at best was but a heavy weight; If well employ'd, a dubious, unpaid toil, If ill, a curse, to tempt men to ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... go to the foundation of things, are, as casuists tell us, really words of very dubious signification, perpetually varying with custom and fashion, and to be adjusted ultimately by no other standards but opinion and force. Obtain power, then, by all means: power is the law of man; make it yours. But to return from a frivolous disquisition ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... "a sneaking piece of imbecility," and that "if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon the chimney-piece as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with him. I am a bad hand at depicting a hero, properly so called, and have an unfortunate propensity for the dubious characters of borderers, buccaneers, highland robbers, and all others of a Robin-Hood description."[33] In another letter he says, "My rogue always, in despite of me, turns out my hero."[34] And it seems very likely that in most of the situations Scott describes so well, his own course ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... well, Till, closing, from the tower they fell, And, grasping each the other's throat, Lay for an instant in the moat. They rose, and each in fiercer mood The sanguinary strife renewed. Well matched in size and strength and skill They fought the dubious battle still. While sweat and blood their limbs bedewed They met, retreated, and pursued: Each stratagem and art they tried, Stood front to front and swerved aside. His hand a while the giant stayed And called ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... talk to him naturally and candidly, thereby displaying more or less of her disposition and temperament. With every word she spoke he found her more and more fascinating—she had a quaint directness of speech which was extremely refreshing after the half-veiled subtleties conveyed in the often dubious conversation of the women he was accustomed to meet in society—while there was no doubt she was endowed with extraordinary intellectual grasp and capacity. Her knowledge of things artistic and literary might, perhaps, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... themselves; and though I fumed and stormed in their presence when they were disposed to lie down and give up, never was a man further from doing them injury. I was too proud of them; but under the circumstances it was dangerous—nay, suicidal—to appear doubtful or dubious of the road. The mere fact that I still held on my way according to the Doctor's little pearly monitor (the compass) had a grand moral effect on them, and though they demurred in plaintive terms and with pinched faces, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... sign of life. They watched long and sharply, but nothing stirred. The advance was taken up and the manoeuvre repeated at fifty yards. Still no sign nor sound. Tyee shook his head, and even Aab-Waak was dubious. But the order was given to go on, and go on they did, till bale touched bale and a solid rampart of skin and hide bowed out from the cliff about the pit and back to ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... everybody else," put in Tom Loudon, "but if something don't turn up damn quick—" He broke off, shaking a dubious head. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... understood the true relation of colonial autonomy to British supremacy. Not even his most foolish eulogist will attribute anything romantic to his character. There was nothing of Disraeli's "glitter of dubious gems" about the honest phrases in which he bade Russell think imperially. Unlike Mazzini, it was his business to destroy false nationalism, not to exalt that which was true, and {227} for that cool business the ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... had left inert and collapsed—lying, indeed, like the body of a man just dead—had arisen, had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... about us? You believe that some great, nameless crime has banished us to this island outside the world? that we drive some dubious trade, of which one can not speak? or that we are the homeless heirs of some dishonored name, who must hide from the sight of the authorities? ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... brought into the firm's office to keep the books through Grimes's influence, of course. By and by it seemed to Chesterton that his old comrade was running pretty close to the wind. The bookkeeper feared that he might be involved in some dubious enterprise. ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe

... version of his conversation with his uncle to that which I knew to be the true one; and said smilingly to me, 'Redmond, I have spoken to the Minister regarding thy services,[Footnote: The service about which Mr. Barry here speaks has, and we suspect purposely, been described by him in very dubious terms. It is most probable that he was employed to wait at the table of strangers in Berlin, and to bring to the Police Minister any news concerning them which might at all interest the Government. The great Frederick never received a guest without taking these hospitable ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... mischief in the Rouergue some five or six centuries ago. Such ham and eggs in her case could only be explained by the theory of hereditary ideas. Nevertheless, she had become French enough to look at me with a dubious, albeit a good-natured eye. My motive in coming there and going farther without having any commercial object in view was more than she could fathom. After my visit to the dairy I fancy her private notion was that I was commissioned by the English Government to ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... grawacke slates, with beds of conglomerates.) This system is largely developed in the west and north of England, and it has been well examined, partly because some of the slate beds are extensively quarried for domestic purposes. If we overlook the dubious statements respecting Sutherland and Bohemia, we have in this "system" the first appearances of life upon our planet. The animal remains are chiefly confined to the slate beds, those named from Bala, in Wales, being the most prolific. Zoophyta, polyparia, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... Tad in this contest; but, as the lad glanced up at the ring only an inch in diameter, he grew rather dubious. He never had seen any tilting, and did not even know how the sport ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... judgment and spirit. Their aim is to educate the youth, to educate the lower people; they see that this is to be done by promoting thought fearlessly, yet urge temperance in action, while the time is yet so difficult, and many of its signs dubious. They aim at breaking down those barriers between the different states of Italy, relics of a barbarous state of polity, artificially kept up by the craft of her foes. While anxious not to break down what is really native ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... question made itself felt in a way personally interesting to Mr. Adams, by the influence it was exerting upon men's feelings concerning the still pending and dubious treaty with Spain. The South became anxious to lay hands upon the Floridas and upon as far-reaching an area as possible in the direction of Mexico, in order to carve it up into more slave States; the North, on the other hand, no longer ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... have had little or no selling experience. You are conscious that you entirely lack sales art. Therefore, though in other ways you feel qualified to succeed in life, you may be dubious about your future. Perhaps you realize that skill in selling true ideas of your best capabilities is all you need to make your success certain. But you question, "Can I be sure of becoming a skillful salesman of myself?" You have ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... It could never be said of the disciples of a Plato that their quest was sure to end in finding what they sought. Many a man then, and many a man since, and many a man to-day, has 'followed knowledge, like a sinking star,' and has only caught a glimmer of a far-off and dubious light. There is only one search which is certain always to find what it seeks, and that is the search which knows where the object of it is, and seeks not as for something the locality of which is unknown, but as for that which the place of which is certain. The manifold voices of human ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... recognized at a glance the dubious mother of her anonymous pupil. Perhaps she was disappointed, perhaps she was only fastidious; but as she coldly invited her to enter, she half-unconsciously settled her white cuffs and collar, and gathered closer her own chaste skirts. It was, perhaps, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... discs. Here Olivia and Antoinette, in charming print frocks, made a kind of tea in a kind of biblical samovar and served it in vessels that resembled individual trophies of the course. And here St. George and Amory praised the admirable English muffins which some one had taught the dubious cook to make; and Mr. Augustus Frothingham tip-fingered his way about his plate among alien fruits and queer-shaped cakes. "Are they cookies or are they manna?" Amory wondered, "for they remind me of coriander seeds." And here Mrs. Hastings, who always awoke a thought impatient and became ultra-complacent ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... guineas; and a Carlo Maratti, which too I am persuaded was a Giuseppe Chiari, lord Egremont bought at the rate of two hundred and sixty pounds. Mr. Spencer(866) gave no less than two thousand two hundred pounds for the Andrea Sacchi and the Guido from the same collection. The latter is of very dubious originality: my father, I think, preferred the Andrea Sacchi to his own Guido, and once offered seven hundred pounds for it, but Furnese said, "Damn him, it is for him; he shall pay a thousand." There is a pewterer, one Cleeve, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... only problems which we can really solve are those of space and number; that even astronomy involves assumptions to which there are 'unanswerable objections'; that what is loosely called science, Darwinism, for example, is 'dubious in the extreme'; that theology and politics are so conjectural as to be practically worthless; and judicial and historical evidence little more than a makeshift. In short, his doctrine is 'scepticism directed ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... much simpler and more honest. In vain he tried the half-baked philosophy of youth. It gave no comfort; and watching the clear desert stars of two mysterious continents, he fell prey to the unbounded and unintelligible complexity of man's world. His own career seemed no more dubious than trivial. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... take the hint, but sat fast, with an embarrassed countenance however, like one who had something to say that he knew not exactly how to make effectual. At length he said, with a dubious smile, "You are fortunate, my lord, in having so soon dispatched your business at Court. Your talking landlady informs me you have been but a fortnight in this city. It is usually months and years ere the Court and a suitor ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... proceeds of which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a material surplus. Under these circumstances a two-handed banquet was proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end. So many stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway directors that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was scrupulously defrayed by ourselves and not carried to account, either of the preliminary survey, or the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... sound, shows a tendency to croup and to the development of tuberculosis, and finally degenerates in whooping-cough, so that epidemic measles and whooping-cough often go hand in hand. After Apis, the cough speedily begins to become looser and milder, to loose its dubious character, and to gradually disappear without leaving a trace behind. If these results should be confirmed by further experience, we would have attained additional means of preventing the supervention of whooping-cough in measles; a triumph of art and ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf

... With this dubious encouragement and palpitating with uneasiness, Martin was forced to tiptoe out of the room in the wake of his white-robed conductor. As he walked down the long, quiet hall, he said to himself that every step was bringing him nearer to the crisis ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... Berwick was between 8000 and 9000. "It included," says Dr. MacEwen, "some curious elements." Not the least curious and dubious of these was that of the lower class of the old Freemen of the Borough. These men had an inherited right to the use of lands belonging to the Corporation, which they let; and to a vote at a Parliamentary election, which they sold. When an election ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... fool enough to think that he had permanently pulled the wool over the eyes of the islanders. Sooner or later they would come to know that he had tricked them, and then—well, he could only shake his head in dubious contemplation of the hundred things that might happen. He smiled as he smoked, however, for he looked down upon a world that thought only of the night ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... had paused at a crossing, and young Draper, with a dubious air, stood striking his agate-headed stick against the curb-stone. "I believe in a purpose, don't you?" he asked, lifting his blue eyes ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... known to be incorrect in many particulars. Enough details for most readers will be found in the Duc de Broglie's "Secret of the King," vol. ii., chaps. vi. and g., and at p. 89, vol. ii. of that work, where the Duke refers to the letter of most dubious authenticity spoken of by Madame Campan. The following details will be sufficient for these memoirs: The Chevalier Charles d'Eon de Beaumont (who was born in 1728) was an ex-captain of dragoons, employed in both the open and secret diplomacy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... has risen to the height of a man, and hourly increases in size. Two weeks, and now its summit is far above the reach of spade or shovel throw, and crowned by a platform firmly knit and held together by well-spliced timbers. As to its object we are somewhat dubious, but think it the beginning of an earthwork fortress, built high in order that guns may be depressed and brought to bear on the turrets of any Monitors which might possibly come down ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... asserted, and generally believed, that the canals had done all they could for the prosperity of the city, and that unless something new turned up for its benefit, Cleveland would remain at a stand-still, or increase only by very slow degrees. Business was extremely dull, the prospect looked dubious, many business men moved to other cities and more were preparing to follow. Just then two things occurred. The war broke out, and the Atlantic and Great Western railway was extended to Cleveland. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... her feet again, he assured himself that he had behaved rather well in the affair. Then he sighed. That dubious fame of his that had spread so quickly across the Caribbean would by now have reached the ears of Arabella Bishop. That she would despise him, he could not doubt, deeming him no better than all the other scoundrels who drove this villainous buccaneering trade. Therefore ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... Tim looked dubious. With the exception of Job, and Daniel in the lions' den, and extracts from one or two thrilling tales like that, he considered the Bible rather tame. His foster-father read a chapter to them every night before they went to bed, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... life and with base opinions. In this novel I run a different risk. I shall not be surprised if I provoke some hostility in making the bad man justify his course by the gaunt and grim morality that masquerades as the morality of our own time, while the good man is made to justify his one dubious act by the full and sincere and just morality that too often wears now the garb of vice—the morality of the books of Moses. This novel relies, I trust, on the sheer humanities alone, but among its less aggressive purposes is that of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... so expressionless, his mouth so tightly closed, and his air of concentration on the business in hand so intense, that he seemed the perfect type of the silent butler. But as soon as lunch was over, and while Cicely still stood in the hall listening with a dubious eye to Malcolm's suggestion of a game of billiards, Mr. James Bisset revealed the other side of his personality. He came up to the young couple with just sufficient deference, but no more, and in an accent which experts would have recognised as the hall mark of ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... ears for nothing else. Worldly affairs were his element, and he was shipwrecked upon the charming solitude which he affected to admire. He was most anxious to return to the world again, but he had difficult cards to play. His master was even more dubious than usual about everything. Granvelle was ready to remain in Burgundy as long as Philip chose that he should remain there. He was also ready to go to "India, Peru, or into the fire," whenever his King should require ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... have to pay for each. I dined well, having respect to the journey of two days and a night I was about to begin, and knowing, too, that an Italian diligence halts only at long intervals. The reckoning, I thought, could be no dubious or difficult matter. I knew the dishes I had eaten, and I saw the prices affixed, and I concluded that a simple arithmetical process would infallibly conduct me to the aggregate cost. But when my bill was handed me (a formality dispensed with in ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... public-house he reached he entered and drank a glass of whisky. The barman had forgotten the piece of lemon, and was rewarded with an oath considerably stronger than the occasion seemed to warrant. Arrived at certain cross-ways, Mr. Woodstock paused. His eyes were turned downwards; he did not seem dubious of his way, so much as in hesitation as to a choice of directions. He took a few steps hither, then back; began to wend thither, and again turned. When he at length decided, his road brought him to Milton Street, and up to the door on which stood ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... ill of a violent cold, which attacked him suddenly one afternoon on his return from his office. It was Christmas weather then, and the cold and the frost of the season were unusually keen, so that the physician, whom Stephen called in to see his father, looked very grave and dubious; and before many days of his patient's illness were past, he asked the young man whether there were any brothers or sisters of his, whom the merchant might wish to see. Stephen's heart beat fast when he heard the ominous question, for he understood what tidings the grave tone and the strange ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... upper one; and right over the head of it was a bull's- eye, or circular piece of thick ground glass, inserted into the deck to give light. It was a dull, dubious light, though; and I often found myself looking up anxiously to see whether the bull's-eye had not suddenly been put out; for whenever any one trod on it, in walking the deck, it was momentarily quenched; and what was still worse, sometimes a coil of rope would ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... remarkable resilience of the economy. Moderate recovery took place in 2002, with the GDP growth rate rising to 2.45%. A major short-term problem in first half 2002 was a sharp decline in the stock market, fueled in part by the exposure of dubious accounting practices in some major corporations. The war in March/April 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq shifted resources to military industries and introduced uncertainties about investment ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... gave a breathing spell to the Cumberland settlements. Robertson at once wrote to the French in the Illinois country, and also to some Delawares, who had recently come to the neighborhood, and were preserving a dubious neutrality. He explained the necessity of their expedition, and remarked that if any innocent people, whether Frenchmen or Indians, had suffered in the attack, they had to blame themselves; they were in evil company, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was necessary—or ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... colours suffer in grey weather, and that strong sunlight is necessary to all the hues of heaven and earth. Here again there are two words to be said; and it is essential to distinguish. It is true that sun is needed to burnish and bring into bloom the tertiary and dubious colours; the colour of peat, pea-soup, Impressionist sketches, brown velvet coats, olives, grey and blue slates, the complexions of vegetarians, the tints of volcanic rock, chocolate, cocoa, mud, soot, slime, ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... did not know him at first; but the moment he spoke, recognized him. Cosmo had been dubious what his reception might be—after the way in which their intimacy had closed; but Mr. Burns held out his hand as if they had parted only the day before, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... deliciously comfortable, and every day at nine o'clock I was at the door eager to enter. I spent most of my day at a desk in the big central reading room, but at night I haunted the Young Men's Union, thus adding myself to a dubious collection of half-demented, ill-clothed derelicts, who suffered the contempt of the attendants by reason of their filling all the chairs and monopolizing all the newspaper racks. We never conversed ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... and into the beginning of their real troubles. The refugee steamboat had departed down river from the Asphodel camp; Chill II had disappeared, the superintendent knew not how, along with the body of Peter Tonsburg; and the superintendent was dubious of their remaining. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... ill-plastered, we can easily distinguish our laughter-loving, night-rejoicing neighbours when they are eating, drinking, singing, etc. My worthy landlady tosses sleepless and unquiet, "looking for rest and finding none," the whole night. Just now she told me—though by-the-by she is sometimes dubious that I am, in her own phrase, "but a rough an' roun' Christian,"—that "we should not be uneasy or envious because the wicked enjoy the good things of this life, for the jades would one day lie in ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... their situation was one of doubt and anxiety. They dared not give even as much as a glance over the smooth, snow white sand. They could only crouch behind it, in anxious expectation, knowing not when that dubious condition of things could be ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... parallel passages about twelve feet in height, were formed by a triple row of shops. The centre row, giving back and front upon the Galleries, was filled with the fetid atmosphere of the place, and derived a dubious daylight through the invariably dirty windows of the roof; but so thronged were these hives, that rents were excessively high, and as much as a thousand crowns was paid for a space scarce six feet by eight. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... a prospector and a company promoter all the working years of his rather shabby life. He had organized some dubious concerns; but his new offices on Broadway were fitted so unostentatiously that anyone could see the Northern Exploitation Company was not trying to glitter for the benefit of the ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... for them. But it was not easy to make the rule absolute, since the Church and pulpit had long been used as a means of publicity in many ways, judicial, educational, and others, and since even sermons were sometimes delivered by humanists and other laymen. There existed, too, in Italy, a dubious class of persons who were neither monks nor priests, and who yet had renounced the world—that is to say, the numerous class of hermits who appeared from time to time in the pulpit on their own authority, and often carried the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... disorderly person, a vagabond, or incorrigible rogue, the reader may perhaps incline to think that many of the offences specified in this Act, and in subsequent statutes, on the same subject, are of a very dubious nature, and that it must require nice legal acumen, to distinguish whether a person incurs any, and what, ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... things as drunkers, but they probably like to have saloons around for themselves. A nice thing would be, to have ladies, like your mother and me, for pleecemen. Then we'd scrub things up, and pour things out, till you couldn't smell or taste a thing. But men are meaner than women"—Bobby looked dubious—"some men aren't though"—he looked relieved. "The reason we are so nice and 'spectable, is because my father is a minister, and doesn't dare do disgraceful things, and your mother doesn't get time. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden



Words linked to "Dubious" :   unconvinced, unsure, uncertain, questionable, incertain



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