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High-handed   /haɪ-hˈændəd/   Listen
High-handed

adjective
1.
Given to haughty disregard of others.  Synonym: cavalier.



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"High-handed" Quotes from Famous Books



... time I was in the country a terrible commotion arose on account of the violation of a senator's son by a young virgin. She was generally condemned for this high-handed and abominable action. The friends of the youth insisted that she should be prosecuted, and if the crime were proved, sentenced to mend the young fellow's honor by marrying him, especially as it could be sworn to that he had ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... how grateful dear Len would be. But we will talk about these things, for of course you will come and lunch all the same, at least I hope you will. Shall we say Thursday? I am not at all pleased with Mr. Wrybolt's behaviour. Indeed it seems to me very high-handed, very! And I told him very plainly what I thought. You can have no idea how galling is a woman's position left at the mercy of a trustee—a stranger too. And now that I am quite alone in the house—but I know you don't like people who complain. It's all very well for you, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... wrath had waxed hotter every day, as he saw power after power extended to the federal government, at length gave way and went back to Maryland, vowing that he would have nothing more to do with such high-handed proceedings. ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... to rob them on pretence of facilitating their affairs, to cringe for a little coin flung them in scorn sometimes by one who had grown rich in greater robbery than they could practise—sometimes, too, springing aside to escape a kick or a blow as ill-tempered success went swinging by, high-handed and vulgarly cruel, a few degrees less filthy and ten thousand times ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... The high-handed course of the Shawanoe would rouse the enmity of the Miamis to the highest point. Revenge is one of the most marked characteristics of the American Indian, who is eager to retaliate upon the innocent when he cannot reach the guilty. The three who had suffered the indignity could easily ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... capitally. Every one was delighted, and I not the least so, when a messenger arrived from the director, who had just returned to town, requesting an immediate interview. Littichau was enraged beyond measure at my high-handed proceedings in this matter, of which he had been informed by our good friend Reissiger. If his baronial coronet had been on his head during this interview, it would assuredly have tumbled off. The fact that I should have conducted my negotiations in person with the court officials, and could report ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... County, as the State election approached, is not altogether clear. President Jackson's high-handed acts, particularly his attitude toward the National Bank, had alarmed many men who had supported him in 1832. There were defections in the ranks of the Democracy. The State elections would surely turn on national issues. The Whigs were noisy, assertive, and confident. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... It is, in fact, a Western code imitated, and as it stands is quite out of harmony with present conditions in China. It will have to be modified and recast to be a suitable, just, and practicable national legal instrument for the Chinese people. Moreover, it is frequently overridden in a high-handed manner by the police, who often keep a person acquitted by the Courts of Justice in custody until they have 'squeezed' him of all they can hope to get out of him. And it is noteworthy that, though provision was made in the Draft Code for trial by jury, this provision never went into ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... was introduced in the play, but that the sight of him so fired the Spanish heart that not only his life, but the success of the piece was endangered. This reminds one of Mr. A. Ward's account of a high-handed outrage at "Utiky," where a young gentleman of good family stove in the wax head of "Jewdas Iscarrit," characterizing him at the same time as a ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... winter. The bulls were too valuable to be risked on the range. We had over fifty stolen last season, that cost us over three hundred dollars a head. I had a letter this morning from our superintendent, asking me to unite with what seems to be a general movement to suppress this high-handed stealing that has run riot in this county in the past. Mr. Baughman has probably acquainted you with the general sentiment in cattle circles regarding what should be done. I wish to assure you further that my people stand ready to use their best endeavors to nominate a candidate ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... unassisted, the pseudo-hero captured a dozen desperadoes; that he was one of the road agents himself; that he was saved from lynching only by the timely arrival of cavalry; that the action of the United States government in rescuing him from the civil authorities was a most high-handed interference with State rights; that he received his reward from a grateful railroad by being promoted; that a lovely woman as recompense for his villainy—but bother! it's my business to tell what really occurred, and not what the world ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... the causes of the great emigration, and shows how the Boers stood up for fair treatment, and fought the cause, not of Boers alone, but of all colonists. Boers and British were alike harshly and ignorantly treated by high-handed Governors, and an ill-informed and prejudiced Colonial Office, who made no distinction on the grounds of nationality between the two; for we read that Englishmen had been expelled the country, thrown in ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... know not how high-handed they have been. They expelled all but us, and some they have maltreated shamefully. This one has been kind ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... even went so far as to propose to them an operation of the nature of lithotrity, which consists in passing into the head a hollow instrument by the help of which an heroic remedy can be applied to the diseased bone, to arrest the progress of the caries. Even the bold Desplein dared not attempt that high-handed surgical measure, which despair alone had suggested to Martener. When he returned home from Paris he seemed to his friends morose and gloomy. He was forced to announce on that fatal evening to the Auffrays and Madame Lorrain and to the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsomined women declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating Seth Craddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of the present hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a whole ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... appear to have continued to hold the manor on lease under the bishop, and to have acted in a somewhat high-handed manner to his spiritual superior, probably under the influence of the change in religious sentiment between the reigns of "the bloody Mary," and her sister Elizabeth of glorious memory. For again we find a document ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... true, therefore, that the high-handed conduct of the King in forcing upon an unwilling people a form of service already distasteful because of its foreign associations, was doubtless an important element in arousing the vigorous opposition with which it was met, nevertheless, ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... no further opportunity to speak to Opal alone. She not only avoided him herself, but the entire party seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to keep him from her. It roused all the fight in his Slavic blood, and he determined not to be outwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. He crossed the room and boldly broke into the conversation of the group in which ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... in the evening, Laurent decided that he would ask his wife for a few thousand francs, and that he would resort to high-handed measures to obtain them. Reflection told him that vice would be an expensive thing, for a man. He patiently awaited Therese, who had not yet come in. When she arrived, he affected gentleness, and refrained from breathing a word about having followed her in the morning. She was slightly ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... its drawer and studied afresh; his visit to McClellan on the battlefield intervened; but on the fifth day after the battle the Cabinet was suddenly called together. When the Ministers had assembled Lincoln first entertained them by reading the short chapter of Artemus Ward entitled "High-handed Outrage at Utica." It is less amusing than most of Artemus Ward; but it had just appeared; it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... less, she had just succeeded in establishing to her own satisfaction the probability that her sponsor had been, if not active in, at least acquainted with the business of the signals—reasoning shrewdly upon that lady's high-handed treatment of Sally's insinuation as inconsequential—when Mr. Trego elected to appear ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... idiot," declared Tom, thinking it quite time to be high-handed, "a first-class, howling idiot, Pepper, to act so. If you don't believe me, when I say I haven't anything to keep back from you, I'll go straight upstairs. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... high-handed, it was not careless. Even statesmen of the greatest strength, having once been drawn into this flood, were borne on into excesses which, a little earlier, would have appalled them. Committees of experts were appointed to study the whole subject of prices, and at last there were ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... Cuthbert had taken pains to learn all he could about what history had to say of their doings; and he found that in the far past they had been merciless and unscrupulous in their dealings with their employers; though, of course, much of this high-handed style of conducting ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return in bad plight after losing all your men, [in another man's ship, and you will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun by high-handed people, who are devouring your substance under the pretext of paying court and ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... allowed them the constant exercise of such rights. Andros, however, especially now that Sir George Carteret had died, in January, 1680, asserted that all rights of government remained unimpaired in the Duke of York. Governor Carteret's narrative of the high-handed proceedings by which he tried to exercise these rights may be seen in Leaming and Spicer's Grants and Concessions, pp. 683, 684. Substantially it agrees with that of Danckaerts. The arrest took place on April 30, 1680, the trial on May 27. But by additional deeds of release, in August ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... assigned for the removal of the Connecticut colonists were the discontent at Watertown over the high-handed silencing by the Boston authorities of Pastor Phillips and Teacher Brown for daring to assert that the "churches of Rome were true churches;" the early attempt of the authorities to impose a general tax; the continued opposition to Ludlow; their desire to oppose ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... answered the lawyer, "the newspapers will be full of it in a day or two. We are going to bring suit against the city. It's really a test case that should interest every citizen; a protest against the high-handed actions of the police." ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... popular ballad extant, and at least one older version has been lost. Similar riddle-stories are to be found in almost all European literatures. There is nothing in this ballad save the name of King John, with his reputation for unjust and high-handed dealing, that can be called traditional. Deere, harm. Stead, place. St. Bittel, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... because he is able to add up a row of figures is no reason why he should be so high-handed with everybody. One would think he was the master ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell

... The high-handed career of this institution imposes upon the constitutional functionaries of this Government duties of the gravest and most imperative character—duties which they can not avoid and from which I trust there will be no inclination on the part of any ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... the colony, a man of large property, and occupying a place in the very front rank of Boston society, had been arrested for witchcraft! What a state of insanity the religious delusion had reached, can be seen by this high-handed proceeding. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... relief was only temporary, and Parliament soon returned to its high-handed measures of repression. One day in the midst of the contest Franklin was talking with a friendly member of Parliament and inveighing against the violence of the government towards Boston. The Englishman replied that these measures of repression did not originate in England, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... shine out. Devonshire, the "prince of the whigs," was forced to resign the chamberlain's staff; the king treated him uncivilly and with his own hand struck his name from the list of privy councillors. The whigs were enraged at this high-handed proceeding. The Marquis of Rockingham resigned the bed-chamber, and George received his resignation with indifference. Worse was yet to come. Overtures were made to Pitt by the whigs who gathered round Cumberland, but he would ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... Jeff carried out his high-handed measures and appeared that evening at "Marse Perkins's" with a ring of portentous size squeezed on the little finger of his left hand. It had something of the color of gold, and that is the best ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... residence and on their arrival suddenly found themselves arrested. At the same time their secretaries and papers were seized, and Antony van Stralen, the burgomaster of Antwerp, was placed under arrest. These high-handed actions were the prelude to a reign of terror; and Margaret, already humiliated by finding herself superseded, requested her brother to accept her resignation. On October 6 the office of Governor-General was conferred upon Alva; and shortly afterwards the duchess ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... the year before. A combination of motives induced him to lead a hundred of his company in a night attack on Berreo's new city of St. Joseph. By dawn he took it. He burnt it down, having first released from a dungeon five caciques fastened together with a single chain. The proceeding was high-handed and summary. Now it would be criminal. It did not bear that character then. Lingard has stigmatised Ralegh as a murderer, on account of the Spanish lives lost during the assault. Berreo and the Spanish Government ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... presents. Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship—it is, nevertheless, altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable contrast to the indolent ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... of those two high-handed courses should I have taken, even had you not stipulated against them. The very essence of our marriage plan is that those two conditions are kept. I see as well as you do, even more than you do, how important it is that for ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... the idea that you were my wife." He paused, choked by emotion. "I waited, God knows," he went on, "waited for nearly three years. And what did I get? A few stolen meetings and a few kisses, not very genuine ones at that. Somehow you carried the thing out in your father's high-handed way. I could n't break through and get at you. Every time we met I thought I would, but instead I took advice and promises, until it became a habit of mind. I became tired of the mockery, and heart-sick. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... a wanton aggression on the right of public meeting in London, and found a ready instrument of tyranny in Sir Charles Warren. No doubt there is much to be said against promiscuous meetings in Trafalgar-square at all hours of the day and night, but it was a high-handed act of brutality to prohibit all meetings directly it was known that the London Radicals were convening a Sunday demonstration on the Irish question. While the Radicals were chafing under this insult they held several stormy meetings to discuss their best policy, and at last a Committee ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote

... Parliament rebuked King James I for his high-handed proceedings with protestation: "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, and that the arduous and urgent affairs ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... pseudo-civilization which apparently has for its object the destruction of the human race by the production of a race of bodiless women. If I am to be a pessimist, I will be one out and out, and seek to destroy the race in a high-handed and manly way. Indoor life, inactivity, lack of oxygen in the lungs, these are things which in time produce a white skin, but do it by sacrificing ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... all these high-handed actions," snarled the deposed autocrat of the Trading Company. His heart hardened as he reflected that, after all, he was the legal marital master of the slim girl there, hidden in her ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... mother threatening her mischievous children with a father's punishment. "Gavie jist won't let us put foot into the fields!" she added proudly. But the two younger ones laughed recklessly. They would be up sides with Gavie yet, for all his high-handed, ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... an air of cool authority about Bannon that disturbed the men. They had been led to believe that his power reached only the work on the elevator, and that an attempt on his part to interfere in any way with their organization would be an act of high-handed tyranny, "to be resisted to the death" (Grady's words). But these men standing before their boss, in his own office, were not the same men that thrilled with righteous wrath under Grady's eloquence in the meetings over Barry's saloon. So they looked at the ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... cool, high-handed air he entered his aunt's house, and asked for Thyme. Faithful to his definite, if somewhat crude theory, that Stephen and Cecilia and all their sort were amateurs, he never inquired for them, though not unfrequently he would, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the new Eleanor, whose strange toleration of the world in general annoyed the "Hill girls" (as those who had come from the Hill School were called) more than her high-handed attempts to run her own set, and her eventual wrecking of its influence, had done the year before. But the Hill girls appreciated Eleanor's ability, and they had resolved among themselves to wait a little and see what happened, ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... and gazed steadily into the girl's face. "This may seem to you a lawless and high-handed proceeding, Miss Elliston," he went on; "but you have just witnessed one exhibition of the tragedy that whiskey can work among my people. In my opinion, the end justifies ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... shown a very pretty little will of her own, and supposing she insisted on holding him to his bargain? There was that estimate, too; it seemed to have clinched things, somehow, between him and Miss Harden. He did not exactly know how to deal with that high-handed innocence, but he would ask her to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... This high-handed diplomacy was backed by formidable demonstrations. The whole country west of the River Sorel, or Richelieu, was occupied by a savage host, and the distant fort of Cataracouy, on the Ontario shore, was with difficulty ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... Marygold. One thing more remained to be done—the greatest blot across the glory of Drake. Doughty was defiant, a party growing in his favor. When sent as prisoner to the Marygold, he had angered every man of the crew by high-handed authority. Drake dared not go on to unknown, hostile seas with a mutiny, or the chance of a mutiny brewing. Whether justly or unjustly, Doughty was tried at Port St. Julian under the shadow of Magellan's old scaffold, for disrespect ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... confessed that all of the youths were deeply excited, and Tom and Sam looked to their pistols, to make certain that the weapons were ready for use. They felt that the rascals who had abducted Dora and Nellie in such a high-handed fashion would not give ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic ...
— The Federalist Papers

... said he was always free, and such a high-handed murderer as he represented, he would go just as far to bring him to justice. "I will tell you what I will do; I will write to an intelligent colored man in each of the largest settlements of colored people, Chatham, Amhurstburg, and Sandwich, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... subject of investigation was Mr. Hand, whom Straker watched for a day or two with growing suspicion. Straker had sputtered, good-naturedly enough, over the "accident" to his racing-car, and had taken it for granted, in rather a high-handed manner, that Mr. Hand was to make repairs. His manner toward the chauffeur was not pleasant, being a combination of the patron and the bully. It was exactly the sort of manner to precipitate civil war, though diplomacy might serve to cover the ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... to the Martels at breakfast next morning. Of course they were sympathetic over Madam Bartlett's accident—the Martels' sympathy was always on tap for friend or foe,—but that did not interfere with a frank enjoyment of Quin's spirited account of her high-handed treatment of the family, especially the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... a spirit of intolerance is altogether averse to the mild spirit of the gospel, so it is also a most dangerous and daring assumption of power over the rights of conscience. Against this high-handed and domineering spirit, God himself has ever set his face. Let the Doctor be reminded of the case of Haman and the despised dissenting Jew, who refused to bow down to the courtiers of the king. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... wearing costly clothes, despising and wronging others. This savors of an excess of magnanimity, not in any truth, but in people's opinion. Hence Seneca says (De Quat. Virtut.) that "when magnanimity exceeds its measure, it makes a man high-handed, proud, haughty restless, and bent on excelling in all things, whether in words or in deeds, without any considerations of virtue." Thus it is evident that the presumptuous man sometimes falls short of the magnanimous in reality, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... pass round the saucer; and every night when he hadn't a special engagement he would make the round of the bars, picking up what little he could. If there was a ship to be sold at auction, or a public meeting to protest against a high-handed something, it got to be the fashion to plaster the notice of it on Doc's back, him playing under a tree for all he was worth with the sweat pouring down his face, while all hands turned out to see what ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... I know? It's a lot of money," she stammered, shaken out of her self-possession. She had not expected so prompt a sequel to the dealer's visit, and she was vexed with him for writing to Raymond without consulting her. But she recognized Moffatt's high-handed way, and her fears faded in the great blaze of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... took a high-handed step. He sent a party up the river, seized {87} Outina, and brought him a prisoner to the fort. This had the desired effect. His people pleaded for his release. The Frenchmen agreed to give him up for a large supply of corn and sent a well-armed party to his village, with the captive ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... of Armagh, born in Yorkshire, a high-handed Churchman and imitator of Laud; was foolhardy enough once to engage, nowise to his credit, in public debate with such a dialectician as Thomas Hobbes on the questions ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Chamberlain had come to London, and there is no indication that his speech at Birmingham had created friction. But the party which wished to offer resistance to Germany's high-handed policy had been strengthened by a ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... Christian Corsairs of the Levant; the forests of Caramania furnished them with ships, and the populations of Asia Minor supplied them with slaves. So long as they roved the seas the Sultan's galleys were ill at ease. Even Christian ships suffered from their high-handed proceedings, and Venice looked on with open satisfaction when, in 1480, Mohammed II. despatched one hundred and sixty ships and a large army to humble the pride of the Knights. The siege failed, however; D'Aubusson, the Grand Master, repulsed ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Pope has established himself in ROME, that capital has been very quiet. The French commandant, General Baraguay d'Hilliers, has returned to Paris, but the French troops remain. The Pope adheres to his high-handed measures of reaction. Rome is full of mysterious rumors, not entitled, however, to much credit. The Pope is accused of an attempt to escape from that city, and his continuance there is only attributed to the vigilance with which his movements ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as in England, by his prerogative—the Omnipotence of the King; he failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground. The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature—the Omnipotence of Parliament—for a several-headed despotism took the place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its hand in America; there were no more requisitions from ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... full-fledged Catholic and believes in Catholicism twenty-four hours each day. By the way, it may be necessary for us to refresh the readers' mind of the fact that Ed Butler of St. Louis, Mo., is considered one of the most high-handed "boodlers" in America, and who has had a number of his "dupes" placed in the state penitentiary and kept himself out of the same institution by a "technicality." But to go back to the point that we wanted to make, we will just say that a Catholic priest ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... an' wrang an' fierce oppression for nae sin whatever against the laws o' God or the land? Are twunty, thretty, or forty years no' enough to warrant oor claim to lang-sufferin'? Does submission to law-brekin' on the pairt o' Government, an' lang-continued, high-handed oppression frae King, courtier, an' prelate, accompanied wi' barefaced plunder and murder—does that no' justifiee oor claim to patience? To a' this the Covenanters hae submitted for mony weary years withoot rebellion, except maybe in ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think our girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather laid her in her grave any day! That hot-headed Markham will not rest until he's published it from Dan to Beersheba. She's only a child, but this thing will stick to her as long as ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman

... insurrection of negroes at Morant Bay, Jamaica, had threatened to take the most serious shape, when it was stamped out by the high-handed measures of Mr. Eyre. After the first congratulations were over another side to the question called for a hearing. The Baptist missionaries declared that among the negroes who were shot and hanged in terrorem were peaceable subjects, respectable members of their own ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... "Now don't be high-handed, old man," expostulated the stranger. But then he seemed to remember something, and stretched out both his arms, held them rigid, and opened his mouth wide as if to speak very loudly. But no sound came, and his arms dropped, and his ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... leader of the opposition; and in 1807, when the Tories returned to power, he became foreign secretary in the ministry of the Duke of Portland, of which Mr. Perceval was the leading member. It was then that Canning seized the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, giving as his excuse for this bold and high-handed measure that Napoleon would have taken it if he had not. It was through his influence and that of Lord Castlereagh that Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward the Duke of Wellington, was sent to Spain to conduct the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... officers are necessary thereto, and to advise of the expenses for the supportation of the same, and by what ways it shall be gotten." All was peace for a short time, and the most friendly relations existed between the queen and her Council, till the first high-handed attempt of Henry VIII. to interfere through his sister in the government of Scotland, resulted in her temporary banishment, and the removal of the infant king from his ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... Toto who had caused the water to rise in the well, out of revenge, but he knew that it would now be impossible to prove it. Strange to say, Malipieri bore him no grudge, for he knew the people well, and after all, he himself had acted in a high-handed way. Nevertheless, he asked the porter if the man were anywhere ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... now vacillated in their high-handed policy, and gave to General Gage discretionary power as to a continuance of the troops in Boston; and this officer had come to the sensible conclusion that troops were worse than needless, for they were an unnecessary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... humorous in my high-handed sentence and laughed sarcastically. So, giving up all attempts to be persuasive, I ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... He said it was so weak that it was transparent an inch in depth around the edge of the cup. As he approached the table one morning he saw the transparent edge—by means of his extraordinary vision long before he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a high-handed way to Capt. Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. The Captain showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was more outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the partiality shown the captain's table over the other tables ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of Lake Torrens, thus settling a certain limit to its extension to the north. He made further explorations to the west of Lake Gregory, now Lake Eyre, and found some hot springs. Meanwhile, during the time he was making these researches, the Government had, in a very high-handed manner, appointed Warburton to supersede him. Warburton started out to find Babbage, taking Charles Gregory as his second. Failing to find him at the Elizabeth, he followed and overtook him at the newly-discovered Lake Gregory. Warburton made a few ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... shut him up in the Hohentwiel, where he lay for four years without light, table, chair or bed. In like manner the patriotic publicist, Moser, was imprisoned for five years, without trial and without sentence, because he had withheld his consent to the duke's high-handed proceedings. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... creep on his hands and knees, and he grunted as much to Bateese on the way to the canoe. He felt, at the same time, that the situation owed him something more of discussion and explanation. Even now, after half killing him, the woman was taking a rather high-handed advantage of him. She might at least have assured him that she had made a mistake and was sorry. But she did not speak to him again. She said nothing more to Bateese, and when the half-breed deposited him in the midship part of the canoe, ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... to study the interests, and conciliate the affections, and instruct the opinions, and champion the rights of the people, that the latter become discontented and turbulent, and fall into the hands of demagogues: the demagogue always steps in, where the patriot is wanting. There is a common high-handed cant among the high-feeding, and, as they fancy themselves, high-minded men, about putting down the mob; but all true physicians know that it is better to sweeten the blood than attack the tumour, to apply the emollient rather than the cautery. It is absurd, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... not suffer such high-handed wickedness to go unrebuked, and taking as a peace offering, in case matters assumed a serious aspect, a pot of gooseberry jam and a ball of head cheese, she started for Camden the very ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... punished three little boys for killing a few rabbits in his park, by ordering the children to be hanged on the spot; and St. Louis was so angry on hearing of the crime that he wished to hang the Sire de Coucy on the same tree. There were others I've read of, just as wicked and high-handed: but their castle was not to blame for its master's crimes! Besides, the last of the proud Enguerrands and Thomases and Raouls, Seigneurs of the line, was son-in-law to Edward III of England; so all their ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... changes which the late ecumenical council has wrought in the constitution of the Church have placed in their hands the power and duty of selecting a supreme ruler of the Church with acknowledged claims to a loftier and more tremendous authority than the most high-handed of his predecessors has hitherto claimed. And the nature of this authority is such that the political rulers of the world may well feel—and are, as we know, feeling—a more anxious interest in the result of the election than they have for many a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... the fruitful source of agrarian disturbance, of poverty and of misfortune in every county in Ireland. To take an example near home,—what rendered Ballinamuck a by-word for deeds of violence? Why, that system which permitted a landlord to treat the people of that district with high-handed injustice. And why is that district now amongst the most peaceable in the county? Because it is now administered by its proprietor in a spirit of justice and fair play, and because that proprietor recognises the fact that property has ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... with a little laugh. 'I'll only admit that I'm not bored! But wasn't it rather a high-handed proceeding to carry off Mr. Feist like that, and to seize ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... lost their hall through the high-handed proceedings of Sir Robert Chester, they purchased or leased a new hall, which was situated at the north-east corner of Brode Lane, Vintry, where they lived from 1562, until the Great Fire in 1666 again made them homeless. The Sun Tavern in Leadenhall Street, the Green ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... underneath the cars. Frequently arrested for begging, trespassing, or stealing rides, they are often victims of injustice at the hands of local judges and justices. The absence of friends, combined with the prejudice against vagrants which everywhere exists, subjects them to arbitrary and high-handed injustice such as no other body of American citizens has to endure. Moreover, through the conditions of their existence they are readily suspected of crimes they do not commit; it is all too easy for the hard-pushed police officer or sheriff to impute a crime to the lone ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... after this, some disagreement arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear, as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... generally imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence of memory, between one generation and its successor, is so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, a sign of weakness in him who is capable of it till all other remedies have been exhausted. It is mere horse science, akin to the theories of the convulsionists in the geological kingdom, and of the believers in the supernatural origin of the species of plants and animals. Yet ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... the women. Many men with whom I have talked think the custom not only archaic, but thought-stifling. The Turkish authorities, thinking to extinguish this light of liberty, have greatly added to its flame, and their high-handed action has materially assisted the creation of a wider public opinion and a better understanding of this crucial problem." The other question exercising opinion in Ḥaifa is the formation of a military and strategic ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... snarled Uriah, snatching it from Ralph's hand. "Why, I never heard tell of such high-handed proceedings in my ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... Such tactics were foreign to his nature. He believed in arresting first and investigating afterward. But his department had gone too far in a recent case, and he had been warned by no less a person than the President himself that his high-handed methods ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... the Colonial Office, completely ignoring Sir Hamilton Goold Adams's signature on behalf of the Queen, and without referring the matter to the native inhabitants in any way, lately confiscated that territory and declared it the property of the Crown. In consequence of this high-handed proceeding there is much bad ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... heaved a great sigh. "Very well," he said heavily. "But I want it known that I resent this high-handed treatment, and I shall write a letter complaining of it." He pressed a button on an instrument panel in his desk. "Bring Mr. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... Of course the planters resented his activity in this direction, and most bitterly did they resent his compelling a strict payment of the tobacco tax. Possibly, however, no open rebellion would have occurred, had not Miller proceeded to high-handed and arbitrary deeds, making himself so obnoxious to the people that finally they were wrought up to such an inflammable state of mind that only a spark was needed to light ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... the case was different. Each had a few adherents, who would not have submitted to such an arbitrary cruelty; and Le Gros was influenced by the fear of a general "skrimmage," in which more than one life,—among the rest perhaps his own,—might be forfeited. The time for such a high-handed measure had not yet arrived; and when it came to the question of "Who dies next?" it was still found necessary to resort ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... Mary to her husband, with the bright hurry of a wife bent upon something high-handed, "we both have to have furniture; we must have it; and I don't have to have ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... accompanied me on the ride, and on our return we visited three of the outfits, urging them to hold all their reserve forces subject to call, in case an attempt was made to force the dead-line. At each camp I took every possible chance to sow the seeds of dissension and hatred against the high-handed methods of The Western Supply Company. Defining our situation clearly, I asked each foreman, in case these herds defied local authority, who would indemnify the owners for the loss among native cattle by fever between Powderville and the mouth of the Yellowstone. Would the drovers? Would ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... a bit resentfully. I was not quite sure that I liked her high-handed way of disposing of me as if I were a child. Then as I felt her keen eyes upon me I knew that she was reading my thoughts, and I felt mightily ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... retorted Mrs. Ross, raising her voice. "I call it a high-handed outrage. The boy ought to be arrested. Are you going to do anything about it, ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... High-handed as such an act was, it was in harmony with the general system which Napoleon was pursuing elsewhere, and which had as yet stirred no national resistance. Holland had been changed into a monarchy by a simple decree of the French Emperor, and its ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... His faults are balanced, I think, by his aristocratic temper. He is too proud consciously to make dirty bargains. High-handed, of course; but that's the race—the race. Things being as they are, I would as soon see him in ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the astonished Postmaster. "'Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact is, the Gov'ment is getting too high-handed! Some o' these bloated officials had better climb ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... going on among his neighbours, he had no compunction about opening the few letters they got; not that he destroyed them after reading them—he very coolly handed them over opened. The people did not like this, and considered it rather high-handed on his part; but then, what was there for them to do ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... other ways. Therefore, as a matter of precaution, they had been put under arrest and their arms taken from them as mine had been. What the commandant said, however, was that he took these somewhat high-handed measures in order to be sure that they, the Prinsloos and the Meyers, should be ready on the following morning to ride with him and the prisoner to the main camp, where the great council might wish to ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... he said. He was gathering reenforcements from his own men. He knew that the boys of the Allen ranch would side with him, and he felt that there were enough lovers of law and order in the county to declare themselves against the high-handed methods of Buck McKee ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... people whom his own people had conquered. Although he himself was shocked by the intolerable vanity of some of his fellow-countrymen, and, up to a certain point, was entirely with the French against such a high-handed Brunswicker demand, he could not understand why France should, after all, be unwilling to enter into an alliance with Germany. The two countries seemed to him to have so many deep-seated reasons for being united, so many ideas ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... that cayuse," sharply commanded the stranger. "An' I'll take yore Winchester as a fine for this high-handed business you've been carrying on. You may be the local court an' all the town officials, but I'm the Governor, an' here's my Supreme Court, as I was saying to the boys a little while ago. Yo're overruled. Get off that cayuse, an' don't waste ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... the Republic; and, though he thought little of the statesmanship or good sense of Caesar's hostile colleague Bibulus, he was thoroughly disgusted with the policy of the triumvirs, with the contemptuous treatment of the senate, with the high-handed disregard of the auspices—by means of which Bibulus tried to invalidate the laws and other acta of Caesar—and with the armed forces which Pompey brought into the campus, nominally to keep order, but really to overawe the comitia, and secure the passing ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the annoying thought that his failure would be no secret from the old hag, his accomplice, looking on at the extremity of the bridge, he yielded to the worst devil in his heart. He inclined to the most high-handed and hectoring measure. Whipping out his sabre with a rapid gesture, and merely muttering a discourteous and grudging: "Be on your guard!" he dealt a cut at the student which threatened to cleave ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... protest against this high-handed proceeding," exclaimed Miss Stone, indignantly, as she appeared at the door of the chamber. "What right have you to go over my ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... less prone to acts of high-handed punishment, restrains him; and the two stand considering what they are to do with their ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... present Desmond nothing worse was charged than that he had enforced what he considered his palatinate rights in the old, high-handed, time-immemorial fashion. His father, however, had been in league with Spain, and he himself was held to be contumacious, and had never been on good terms with any ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... argue with me. I found it. Naturally I claim it. I could quote you verbatim the section of the mining law under which I am entitled to maintain this high-handed—er—outrage; but why indulge in such a dry subject? I found this claim, and since I don't feel generously disposed this morning, I'm going ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... cheerful faces around him. They helped him, no doubt, to carry on to the end of his days that high-handed and dignified fight against ill-fortune ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... woman could detach them by exerting adequate pressure. This she did; and having loosened the little creatures from their foot-hold, she partly lifted, partly shoved them behind her and slipped into their places at the barrier. This high-handed act roused the resentment of a young man, the parent or guardian of the children. He wanted to know what she thought she was doing, shoving there, and told her that the kids had as much right to see the blooming show as she had, and he'd trouble her to give ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... excitedly; "the fellow is a villain, there is no doubt about that. I have never entertained a very high opinion of him, it is true; but I must admit that I was quite unprepared for any such high-handed behaviour as ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... dinner for them? I wish they may neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of my son's estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children, how good Ulysses had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, nor speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, and that there ...
— The Odyssey • Homer



Words linked to "High-handed" :   domineering



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