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Humiliating   /hjumˈɪliˌeɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Humiliating

adjective
1.
Causing awareness of your shortcomings.  Synonyms: demeaning, humbling, mortifying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Humiliating" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Yes. It was pretty humiliating, for it just proved we had aimed at the tree and missed it. Instead, we shot the Chinkee's inoffensive pigs. It was many a long day before that joke was forgotten against us. Moreover, amongst us we had to scrape a pound together to pay ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... harshly, with great humiliation to the penitents. At the urgent remonstrances and entreaties of Curuzelaegui, Pardo finally consents to absolve the ex-governor, Vargas; but he loads this concession with conditions so grievous and humiliating that Vargas is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... troubled and stormy tribuneship, not one unmerited or illegal execution of baron or citizen could be alleged against him, even by his enemies; yet sharing, less excusably, the weakness of Nina, he could not deny his proud heart the pleasure of humiliating those who had ridiculed him as a buffoon, despised him as a plebeian, and who, even now slaves to his face, were cynics behind his back. "They stood before him while he sate," says his biographer; "all these Barons, bareheaded; their hands crossed on ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... you who can offer me no reparation for the offence against my feelings—and my person; for what reparation can be adequate for your odious and ridiculous plot so scornful in its implication, so humiliating to my pride. No! I don't ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... Marty was giving wholes instead of tenths and the red box was so well filled, that it met with an accident that disfigured it for life. Though the occurrence was a sad and humiliating one for Marty, it led ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett

... it had caught Marguerite full between the eyes; her aching senses, wearied and reeling already, gave way beneath this terrible violence; her useless struggles ceased, her arms fell inert by her side: and losing consciousness completely, her proud, unbendable spirit was spared the humiliating knowledge of her final removal by the rough soldiers, and of the complete wreckage of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... responsible. He was, in fact, entirely ignorant of the art of boat sailing. But the men who sat on the window sills of Brannigan's shop, battered sea dogs every one of them, had their eyes fixed on him. It would be deeply humiliating to have to own up before them that he knew nothing about boats. Sir Lucius's order applied, very properly, to Priscilla who was a child. Peter Walsh looked as if he thought that Frank also ought to be treated as a child. This was intolerable. The ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... should not address you when my sister and cousin did. And now to explain this riddle, for though mamma has excused my silence to you, I am quite sure she has not told you the real truth. She would not expose my silly weakness, and therefore prepare yourself for a most humiliating confession, which will, in all probability, lower me ten degrees in your estimation. However, truth must he told, and so it shall be with all the necessary regularity and precision. You know, almost better than any one else, how very much I disliked the thought of leaving dear ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... Edinburgh Castle with the hot-headed young Prince at their head did not know what to make of the pleasant enemy. The alarm he had caused, compelling their own withdrawal into the stronghold, wrath at the mere sight of him there in the heart of Scotland, the humiliating inaction in which they were kept by a foe which neither attacked nor withdrew, must have so chafed the Prince and his companions that the challenge thrown forth like a bugle from the heights to break this oppressive silence and bring about the lingering crisis one way or another must have been ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... 23, the Austro-Hungarian government sent a note to the government of Serbia holding her accountable for the Serajevo murder and making a number of humiliating demands. Serbia was told she must suppress all newspapers inciting enmity to Austria, that she must dissolve all societies that were working toward "Pan-Serbism," that she must dismiss from the Serbian public service all officials whom the Austrian government ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... his palace when he had grown somewhat over-festive he took the head of his general Akechi(159) under his arm and with his fan played a tune upon it, using it like a drum. Akechi was mortally offended and never forgave the humiliating joke. His treason, which resulted in Nobunaga's death, was the final outcome of this ...
— Japan • David Murray

... relief. I was suffering more from my humiliating position, being unable to stand, than from the tortures themselves, bad as they were. The Pombo told me that I must now look toward the tent. He then got ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... me—than they who consider themselves entitled to censure my faults, to exalt themselves in secret above me, perhaps because they have taken me out of compassion. Taken me out of compassion! Subjecting, humiliating thought! ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... embarrassments were known his antagonists would combine and try to pull him down. One must pay for one's extravagance, but to pay would break him, and if he were broken, Mortimer would sneer and Grace treat him with humiliating pity. He would be their mother's pensioner, and to lose his independence was hard. He had ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... that Marien had understood what she was saying and that he resented the humiliating avowal from her own lips that her childish love was now ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... happy if this tyrant does not apply the lash too often to their backs, and who will kiss his feet, so that he may step at least mildly and gently on their necks! If the tyrant should succeed now in humiliating Austria, who alone has been courageous enough to oppose him; if Napoleon should defeat the Austrian army, Germany would be lost and become nothing but a French province like Italy and Holland: all the German princes ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... me in friendship. I have felt at times right lonely, Leuchtmar, and sorely sighed for you. It could not be, though, and I have learned already to submit to necessity. Necessity alone is the despotic mistress of all princes, and we nothing but her humble vassals. It is a humiliating thought, but nevertheless true. I must learn to endure mortifications, and to consider them but the price which ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... that he had little to gain from the new parliament, which insisted on having its own way, and refused even the king's humiliating proposal to place the government of the country after his demise in the hands of a regent, leaving the bare title of king to his brother, the Duke of York. It caused an impeachment to be laid against an Irishman named Fitzharris ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... could not be induced to say that she was in the least surprised. Pixie hoped that none of the girls would ask about the new brother's business; for, after boasting of possible dukes, it was really rather humiliating to come down to glue! What a comfort that Lottie had turned over a new leaf, and abandoned her snobbish, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... as well set out in the daytime. But his pride shrank from the relieved faces and grudging farewells that would signalize his departure. No; it would be far better to slip away by night, without saying anything to anybody. But his going must be unobserved. It would be humiliating to ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... of London is now laughing, has an interest which is perhaps not confined to the art of painting. For me, personally, it has a slight, vague repercussion upon literature. The attitude of the culture of London towards it is of course merely humiliating to any Englishman who has made an effort to cure himself of insularity. It is one more proof that the negligent disdain of Continental artists for English artistic opinion is fairly well founded. The mild tragedy ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... letters had failed to impress him, Green felt certain that his visiting-card would be of little use. Since he had decided to visit the police station in any case, it did not much matter. It was humiliating, in a way, but it did ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... professional life before the public. One must look on some of these people as on a building spoiled by a bad architectural design. In some cases there is nothing to do but to take the whole structure apart and put it together afresh. It may be humiliating to the vocalist, and it is a severe condemnation of certain methods of teaching, but there is often no other course open, the only question being as to whether the material is good enough to warrant such a radical proceeding. Every eminent teacher can recall ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... cited John to appear at Berwick on March 1, 1296. Thus, by a process similar to that which had embroiled Edward with his French overlord, the King of Scots also was forced to face the alternative of certain war or humiliating surrender. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... your presence a little longer. You see to what I was driven before I could force myself to trouble you again. These are not proper apartments for a gentleman; you will admit I had an excuse. The whole thing is miserably humiliating." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... develop incompatibility, after being convinced it is irreconcilable the only thing to do is to sever the tie. This is often heart-breaking if caused by the infidelity of one party, and always humiliating, especially to the girl. To spare her as much as possible, the man assumes the breaking-off was her act. He never allows himself to speak of her save in terms of the most perfect respect. The presents, letters, pictures, are returned, and Cupid retires ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... forth. "Has he not already dragged an honored name in the dust? A stroller! A player!" The marquis fairly gasped at the enormity of the offense; for a moment he was speechless, and then asked feebly: "What caused him to take such a humiliating step?" ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... desperate efforts to escape from my humiliating thraldom, and, as I was sober during the days of struggle, I sought and found business, and thus managed to secure a little money, although most of my clients were poor and anything but influential. I always did my best for them, however, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... attain.[20] But only confusion is attained by any general attempt to amalgamate masochism and foot-fetichism. In the broad sense in which erotic symbolism is here understood, both masochism and foot-fetichism may be cooerdinated as symbolisms; for the masochist his self-humiliating impulses are the symbol of ecstatic adoration; for the foot-fetichist his mistress's foot or shoe is the concentrated symbol of all that is most beautiful and elegant and feminine in her personality. But if ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... whom Mr. N. was largely indebted here. He refused to introduce him to Dr. Bunting, etc., although this favour was solicited. He neither invited Mr. G. to see him again, nor even called on him. This British reciprocity of American politeness is humiliating, and resembles the treatment you and your brother received at his hands, as well as that of other great men in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... was unable to realize" has been taken by many stupid people to imply that Cezanne was conscious in himself of some peculiar and slightly humiliating inhibition from which his fellows were free; and even M. Vollard has thought it necessary to be continually apologizing for and explaining away the phrase, which, moreover, he never does explain. Yet the explanation is as simple as can be. Genius of the very highest order ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... humiliating him, they led him to the place of torture; but when he heard that his army had escaped from the ambush, he fervently cried, "I die happy, since ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... feel deeply on the matter, but my sensations were of a very mixed character, and I do not feel that it was derogatory to my character, as a loyal subject of his Majesty, or as a British officer, to say that I heartily prayed that the war might be over, even though the proposed humiliating surrender might be the last great event connected with it. After I had been conveyed through several ruined, half-burned streets, my bearers at length stopped at a house where O'Driscoll told me he believed Colonel Carlyon was ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... found that he had too many other uses for his time. M. Nioche, however, came to see him very promptly, having learned his whereabouts by a mysterious process to which his patron never obtained the key. The shrunken little capitalist repeated his visit more than once. He seemed oppressed by a humiliating sense of having been overpaid, and wished apparently to redeem his debt by the offer of grammatical and statistical information in small installments. He wore the same decently melancholy aspect as a few months before; a few months more or less of brushing could make little ...
— The American • Henry James

... perfect command of expression. He is a first rate clergyman, able to say what he likes to whom he likes, to lecture people without setting himself up against them, to impose his authority on them without humiliating them, and to interfere in their business without impertinence. His well-spring of spiritual enthusiasm and sympathetic emotion has never run dry for a moment: he still eats and sleeps heartily enough to win the daily battle ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw

... the whole concern away, after which, like a wild-horse set free, it took a leap of full thirty feet—a straight column of solid water—before it burst itself on the ground, and rushed wildly down to the lake! It was a humiliating termination— and showed how terrible it is to create a ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... of a small squadron in the Mediterranean is a necessary substitute for the humiliating alternative of paying tribute for the security of our commerce in that sea, and for a precarious peace, at the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States, by whom it was liable to be violated. An additional motive for keeping a respectable ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... undoubtedly full of interest to lawyers, but it was painful and humiliating to devout members of the Church. Some weeks were occupied in fruitless negotiations, but at length, through the influence of the aged Bishop Harper, a way was discovered out of the thicket. Bishop Hadfield resigned his claims to the primacy, ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... him; his strength decreased, and the fever wrecking his body grew more violent. The disease had recently, however, assumed a definite character; the news of the disaster of Friedland, and of the humiliating treaty of Tilsit, had violently shaken his constitution, and the physician was now able to discern the true character of the malady and give it a name. It was the tertian fever which alternately reddened and paled the baron's cheeks, at times paralyzing his clear, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... already said, but the results were negligible because the men were unable to employ their capacities. There were sensational features, like the production of "Parsifal" and "Salome," but there were humiliating ones, like the prostitution of a great establishment for the performance of "Die Fledermaus" and "Der Zigeunerbaron" to deck out the Herr Direktor's benefits. The blight of commercialism had fallen on the institution. On February 11, 1908, Mr. Conried resigned, and announcement ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... was rendered famous as being the last residence of the unhappy Wolsey; "within its walls," says Gilpin, "was once exhibited a scene more humiliating to human ambition, and more instructive to human grandeur than almost any which history hath produced. Here the fallen pride of Wolsey retreated from the insults of the world, all his visions of ambition were now gone; his pomp and pageantry and crowded levees! On this spot he told the listening ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... given to the younger princess a great sympathy with the vanquished Welsh, and she was generously eager that those who came to pay homage to her father should not feel themselves in a position that was humiliating or galling. The gentle Eleanor shared this feeling to the full, and was glad to give to the young knight Sir Godfrey Challoner, who was one of her own gentlemen-in-waiting, a gracious message for the young Lord of Dynevor to the effect that she would ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... King Thebaw that the British Government insisted upon an Envoy being received at Mandalay, with free access to the King, without having to submit to any humiliating ceremony; that proceedings against the trading company would not be permitted; that a British Agent, with a suitable guard of honour and steamer for his personal protection, must be permanently stationed at the Burmese capital; ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... at twelve per cent. discount. The present loan is not to be taken at any rate, unless the Government descends to the humiliating alternative of securing State endorsements. Our credit is going lower and lower every day, and it will soon come to the point where our bonds will be worth no more than Continental ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... word," said Brown, "and has been for the last three years. Is not it astonishing and profoundly humiliating," he added solemnly, "to see a chit of a girl, just because she has brown curls and brown eyes with a most bewildering skill in using them, so twiddle a man? ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... "It's rather humiliating to our house, sir," said Ainger, "if our prefects are not to be allowed to deal with ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... wicked. There are people who seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are ever ready to do harsh and cruel things, whose use for social feeling is the malignant boycott, and for prosperity, monopolisation and humiliating display; who seize upon religion and turn it into persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on the altars of some joyless vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no use for them, and it is very easy indeed to step from that persuasion ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... getting desperate for Westfield, and humiliating too, when one of their bowlers happened to change his style. Instead of the slashing round-arm balls which he had hitherto sent in, he suddenly and without warning put in an underhand lob—an easy, slow, tempting ball, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... had to call upon the tailor and beg him for further time. This was humiliating, especially as the tailor was considerably out of humor, and disposed to be hard with him. A threat to apply for the benefit of the insolvent law again, if a suit was pressed to an issue, finally induced the tailor to waive ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... It is humiliating to any far-seeing woman to have to recognize this glaring proof of the dependent, degraded position of her sex; and it ought to be humiliating to men to see the results of their mastery. These crazily decorated little creatures do not ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... she alone had entered into the source of that prevarication, the complex feelings from which it sprang. But at that moment I could not forgive her for humiliating me. I hugged ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... same, and advised their removal. Colonel Dalrymple had consented that the regiment which began the disturbance should leave, but it would be very humiliating if all the troops were to go. The instructions from the king had put the military as superior to the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... in use that the patents are off and the processes are well enough known. We have the coal tar and we have the chemists, so there seems no good reason why we should not make our own dyes, at least enough of them so we will not be caught napping as we were in 1914. It was decidedly humiliating for our Government to have to beg Germany to sell us enough colors to print our stamps and greenbacks and then have to beg Great Britain for permission to bring ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... difficulty got to hold in the sides of the old Indianian. On August 14th John Paul Jones again set sail for English waters, with the following vessels: Alliance, thirty-six; Pallas, thirty; Cerf, eighteen; Vengeance, twelve; and two French privateers. Owing to the humiliating conditions imposed upon him by the French Minister of Marine, Commodore Jones did not have absolute command. In a gale on the 26th the two privateers and the Cerf parted company, never to return. After the most outrageous conduct off the coast of Ireland, Landais, in the 'Alliance', left the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to which in good society one does not refer, first and foremost humiliating antecedents. The present circumstances were exceptional to be sure, but it was to be hoped that Mr. Mutimer would outgrow this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of the working-classes if he liked, but always in the third person. The good lady began to ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... one of the biggest bubbles in history, and left Russia in a profoundly humiliating situation. Her navy was practically destroyed, her armies soundly beaten, her offensive power temporarily reduced to zero, her treasury exhausted, her pride laid in the dust. If the greatness of a nation consisted in the number and size of its battleships, in ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... shivering and half dressed, would away grumbling, to grind the colours in the dark, cold workroom, cudgelling his wits the while, grinding and cursing all the time, to think of some way of escaping such harsh and humiliating treatment in future. Long he sought in vain; but his mind was an active one, and one morning early a happy ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... Government in the country and promote an enduring peace. The suspicion that the territory would be given back would have come on these hoping, waiting, and longing sufferers like a blast from the pole. Fortunately it was not given to them to foresee the humiliating end of their staunch endurance. Anathemas long and deep were sounded at the mention of Dr. Jorissen, who was looked upon as the fuse which set alight the rebellious temper of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... ships usually take a pilot a good way out to sea, and in all likelihood there was one on board. Should I show myself before this functionary had been dismissed, I would certainly be taken back in his pilot-boat; which, after all my success, and all my sufferings, would have been a humiliating result. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... words had left her mouth, she already regretted them, for his refusal now would have been doubly humiliating for herself, and her good sense had told her already that no patrician—least of all Taurus Antinor—would submit quietly to public insult and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Ellen Webster's toils and own himself beaten would, Lucy well understood, be to his mind a humiliating fate. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... found settled at San Fernando as president of the missions, related to us an event which excited in our minds the most painful feelings. If, in these solitary scenes, man scarcely leaves behind him any trace of his existence, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see perpetuated by so imperishable a monument of nature as a rock, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our species, and the contrast between the virtue of a savage, and the barbarism of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... turning my mind from the past to the future, from regret to apprehension. The necessity of considering my situation prevented me from contemplating, at that time, the perfidy of Mlle. d'Arency, the blindness with which I had let myself be deceived, or the tragic and humiliating termination of my great ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... East this is the action of a servant or a slave, practised by freemen only when in danger of life or extreme need an i therefore humiliating. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing." [Footnote: 2 Bk. VI, 488-489.] But this wistful admission, though it protects him against whatever was the Greek equivalent for the charge that he lacked a sense of humor, furnished a humiliating tailpiece to a solemn thought. He becomes defiant and warns Adeimantus that he must "attribute the uselessness" of philosophers "to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him—that is ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... in Paris, and that character I shall keep, unless obliged to alter it. Parade and pomp have no charms in the eyes of a patriot, or even a man of common good sense; but at the same time, I can never submit to the changing of my name, unless I am convinced that so humiliating a step will promote the service of my country. I can pass unnoticed under that name, as well as any other, whilst I conduct in every other step as a private gentleman. I have now but little hopes of being in Holland till October, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... priest of a century ago—a friend of Whitefield." He is likely to come under the spell of this reverend Ghost who haunts the "Manse" and as it rains and darkens and the sky glooms through the dusty attic windows, he is likely "to muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact that the works of man's intellect decay like those of his hands" ... "that thought grows moldy," and as the garret is in Massachusetts, the "thought" and the "mold" are likely to be quite native. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... a brave girl to take it that way," he answered, and his eyes kindled with admiration. "I wonder how many men would have gone through this morning's humiliating experience and to-night's ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... dreary in the Tchikildyeevs' hut without the samovar; there was something humiliating in this loss, insulting, as though the honour of the hut had been outraged. Better if the elder had carried off the table, all the benches, all the pots—it would not have seemed so empty. Granny screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking at her, cried, too. The old father, feeling ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... theirs, important Packet, Genial skies and happy calms— No derogatory racket, No humiliating qualms! Gales, I charge you, shun to rouse and Lash the seas to angry foam, While Britannia's Great Ten Thousand Sweep, ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... tolerate a strong executive for fear of seeing the control pass out of the hands of the mob. The executive must be unarmed and defenceless. The result is that it is at the mercy of any violent and anti-social faction. No civilised government has ever given a more ludicrous and humiliating object-lesson than the Cabinet and House of Commons in the years before the war, in face of the outrages committed by a small gang of female anarchists. The legalisation of terrorism by the trade-unions ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... nourish the carnivore more abundantly; the direct helper may be best illustrated by reference to some parasitic creature, such as the tape-worm. The tape-worm exists in the human intestines, so that the fewer there are of men the fewer there will be of tape-worms, other things being alike. It is a humiliating reflection, perhaps, that we may be classed as direct helpers to the tape-worm, but the fact is so: we can all see that if there were no men there ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

... seen the instance of a person, of Lady Byron's rank in life, placed before the world in a position more humiliating to womanly dignity, or ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... on the doctor's face, and only to one who knew him well could the expression be at all decipherable. To me it distinctly denoted disappointment—that humiliating sense of disappointment and disillusion which must invariably come upon a man of strong and fanatical convictions when brought into contact with the meanness and cowardice ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... could she help blessing the violence which put an end to a situation which was so insulting for her, and so humiliating for Maurice? ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... these teasing and almost humiliating discussions, Dryden continued steadily advancing in his great labour; and about three years after it had been undertaken, the translation of Virgil, "the most noble and spirited," said Pope, "which I know in any language," was given to the public in July 1697. ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... scarcely more than a nod, and showed their mutual constraint. Leigh read in Emmet's bold eyes a warning such as an injured husband might convey to the man that had wronged him, and a defiant reassertion of himself after his humiliating confession. He suspected also, what indeed was the truth, that the discovery of his own feeling for the bishop's daughter had opened Emmet's eyes anew to her value, and had cleared them of the mists of passion for the unfortunate Lena Harpster. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... line of sheep he was obliged to follow Pedro out of the door. It was a humiliating moment. Gilbert ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne

... make the Dutchman think I am being taken as a pupil to a finishing school in Germany." She thought of her lonely pilgrimage to the West End agency, of her humiliating interview, of her heart-sinking acceptance of the post, the excitements and misgivings she had had, of her sudden challenge of them all that evening after dinner, and their dismay and remonstrance and reproaches—of her fear and determination in insisting ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... he was captured; for the English had destroyed and burnt theirs as often as they could. As we had no means of import, and as the enemy had burnt our clothes, who shall condemn our action, however humiliating it might have been to the soldier or costly to the British Government to provide outfits for both parties? Necessity knows no laws. In the same way the burghers were provided with rifles, ammunition, horses, saddles, bridles and other necessaries by the British. When their ammunition first ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... sense, with a tolerable education, and fond of all the reading she could find time to do, still she continued to plead for this supremacy of the needle, even after her humiliating experience at the slop-shops. She was the most industrious sewer I have ever known,—and not only industrious, but neat, conscientious, and rapid. Machines, with iron frames and wheels, had not then been invented; but since they have, I have never seen a better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... troubled couch, he called for the record of the court, and there found that Mordecai had a short time before informed him through the queen, of an attempt to assassinate him, and no reward been bestowed. The next day, therefore, he made Haman perform the humiliating office of leading his enemy in triumph through the streets, proclaiming before him: "This is the man whom the king delighteth to honor." As he passed by the gallows he had the day before erected for that very man, a shudder crept through his frame, and the first omen of coming evil ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... not blame), exposed their teachers, for a time, to the censure of philologists. Viewed with suspicion by the French, they only were admitted into that nation in 1562, under the name of "the Fathers of the College of Clermont," with a humiliating renunciation of their most important privileges, but they soon united in the factions of that country, and, notwithstanding a strong suspicion of their having had a share in the murder of Henry III., under the {100} protection of the Guises, they contrived to establish ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... the air," said the Prince, "and to prick at the outset the bubble with which you were trying to dazzle me. Let me assure you that we thoroughly understand France's attitude in this matter. She is on our side simply because she sees an opportunity of humiliating, through us, ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... with suspicion, would only allow the legates of the pope to preside over them on condition of their recognizing the superiority of the council; the legates ended by submitting to this humiliating formality, but in their own name only, thus reserving the judgment of the Holy See. Nay more, the difficulties of all kinds against which Eugenius had to contend, the insurrection at Rome, which forced him to escape by the Tiber, lying in the bottom of a boat, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... were collecting exercises. Lazy children wanted to stretch. Good ones scribbled assiduously—ah, another day over and so little done! And now and then was to be heard from the whole collection of human beings a heavy sigh, after which the humiliating old man would cough shamelessly, and Miss Marchmont hinnied ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... Eve, in the hands of barbarians, is not thy Eve. It will now become my turn to become a handmaiden, and to perform for others offices a thousand times more humiliating than any thou hast ever ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Earaird—they took each a hand of Mochuda and in a disrespectful, uncivil manner, they led him forth out of the monastery while their followers did the same with Mochuda's community. Throughout the city and in the country around there was among both sexes weeping, mourning, and wailing over their humiliating expulsion from their own home and monastery. Even amongst the soldiers of the king were many who were moved to pity and compassion for Mochuda and ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... the Jesuit Vieyra's mission to Maranham is as humiliating to human nature, as his sincere exertions in the cause of the suffering Indians is creditable to himself; but neither his exertions, nor the royal authority, could baffle the selfish cruelty and avarice of the people of that captaincy; they broke out into open rebellion in defence ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... might not Milton, with his Parliamentarian connexions, be able to befriend the family generally when the time did come? Soon after Naseby, accordingly, we are to imagine the poor young wife taking the journey to London, accompanied by her mother or some other relative, on her humiliating and dubious errand. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... washerman wash their clothes. They usually have a separate well assigned to them from which to draw water, and if the village has only one well, one side of it is allotted to them and the Hindus take water from the other side. Formerly they were subjected to more humiliating restrictions. In Bombay a Mahar might not spit on the ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot, but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He was ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... to be done by educating the people; by teaching them their proper value in society; by instructing them in their moral and civil duties. Let them not labor under that humiliating and slavish error, that the landlord is everything, and themselves nothing; but let the absurdity be removed, and each party placed upon the basis of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... was fine business for the Devil to be in; but how could the Devil help himself? He was wholly at Daniel's mercy. He went groaning about the humiliating task. ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... women and those not engaged in the struggle, and by trampling upon every right and liberty sacred to the people. He had issued some degrading order, which the citizens were bound in pain of death to obey. One brave man, Mumford, refused, preferring death to obeying this humiliating order. For this he was torn from the embrace of his devoted family, and, in sight of his wife and children, placed in a wagon, forced to ride upon his own coffin, and in the public square was hanged ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... Hugo used to say that only kings desired war, and that with the celebration of the United States of Europe we should see the beginning of the golden age of Peace. But the events of the tremendous days from July 28 to August 4,1914, show us with humiliating distinctness that though Kaisers, Emperors, Crown Princes, and Archdukes may be the accidental instruments of invisible powers in plunging humanity into seas of blood, a war is no sooner declared by any of them, however feeble or fatuous, than all the nations concerned ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... as Mr. Emerson once styled the new fetichism of the mahogany tables. It has not one element that asks the sense of beauty to incorporate it, or challenges the weapon of wit to transfix it. It is humiliating, but not pathetic, not even when yearning hearts are trying to pretend that their first-born vibrates to them through a stranger's and a hireling's mind. It is not even grotesque, but it is gross, and flat, and stale; its messages are fatuous, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... two were oppressed by thoughts of the absent one. The attempts of his friends during the day to help or to get trace of Fred Greenwood had been brought to naught, and it looked as if they would have to consent to the humiliating terms of Tozer and Motoza, with strong probability that the missing youth was never again to ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... "Notwithstanding this humiliating state and rigid treatment to which this wretched race are subject, they are devoid of care, and appear jovial, contented and happy. It is a fortunate circumstance that they possess, and are blessed with such an easy ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... fascinating room and perfect dream of a bed. I feel an ungrateful wretch for so much as mentioning this matter to you after the way in which you have indulged me. Only something rather extraordinary really did happen, of which I honestly confess I am still expiring to find a reasonable and not too humiliating explanation. For, though I blush to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, "I want to tell you everything." But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... between the Swiss and imminent destruction, when, viewing with a compassion, most rare in those days, the impending fate of the heroic mountaineers, the powerful Count of Toggenborg tried to negotiate a peace with the Duke. Leopold's terms, however, were so humiliating and evidently so insincere that nothing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... his now close connection with the Pope. But although the English King's reign had been full of unfortunate events, the last and most grievous of his trials still awaited him, and "he was destined to pass through a series of more humiliating circumstances than had ever yet fallen to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... compromise the Duc de Gontaut, the King was told that the valet had come to a knowledge of the business from a letter which he had found in his master's clothes. The King took his revenge by humiliating the Archbishop, which he was enabled to do by means of the information he had obtained concerning the conduct of the lady, his protegee. She was found guilty of swindling, in concert with her beloved valet; but, before ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... chief of state were well known to all save Charles himself, and, on one occasion at least, Napoleon, by threatening to reveal the whole shameful story to the king, bent Godoy to his will and forced him to humiliating concessions. The queen supported him blindly, however, in every measure, and put her evil ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... here below; thence, their systematic ignorance of fundamental questions; thence, the incurable blindness in which they bask; thence, finally, the inconsistencies and contradictions which make them a spectacle humiliating to ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... Liverpool have thought could they have seen the items which they were buying for six million pounds? The inventory would have been a mixed one of good and of evil: nine fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond mines in the world, the wealthiest gold mines, two costly and humiliating campaigns with men whom we respected even when we fought with them, and now at last, we hope, a South Africa of peace and prosperity, with equal rights and equal ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... think of letting him go without having eaten. A special service was prepared for him in the kindest way possible, and Keith enjoyed very much the many dainties offered him. Nevertheless he felt the situation as humiliating and was actually glad when he got away at last. But the gladness was only a surface gloss on a burning ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... the treatment is a disagreeable one for the child, and is occasionally painful. Fourth, it has a disastrous effect on the child's morale; most parents, though they may love the child most affectionately, look somewhat askance at it; and continuous vaginal treatment somehow or other has a humiliating effect on the child, which begins to consider itself as an outcast, as something apart from other children. Fifth, the child's education is very frequently seriously and permanently interfered with, because it must often be taken out of school, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... feeling a horrible, humiliating desire to cry. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her knees refused to bear her. Thankfully she sat down on the foot-board of Fay's little pram. The tall figure between the two little ones suddenly grew blurred and dim. Furtively she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... "You had better ask Lady Bassett. It may be because I had the misfortune to set fire to her once. It is true I extinguished her afterwards, but I don't think she enjoyed it. It was a humiliating process. Besides, it spoilt ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... as if everything had contributed to injure poor Chambord, designed by Le Primatice and chiselled and sculptured by Germain Pilon and Jean Cousin. Upreared by Francis the First, on his return from Spain, after the humiliating treaty of Madrid (1526), it is the monument of a pride that sought to dazzle itself in order to forget defeat. It first harbours Gaston d'Orleans, a crushed pretender, who is exiled within its walls; then ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... now to cross a blade with this boy from the backwoods, but his pride had been bitterly hurt by the deeds of Paul and his comrades. Such presumption must be punished, and the punishment must be of a humiliating kind. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler



Words linked to "Humiliating" :   undignified, humbling



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