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callous
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Absence cannot have rendered you callous to our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on my long absent son?   (source)
    callous = heartless (with a disregard for others)
  • Have they been programmed to hate our faces particularly because we have survived and they were so callously murdered?†   (source)
  • A calloused hand, a healed cut, the shiny slash of a burn on the deep bronze skin.†   (source)
  • But there could be a more callous way of looking at it.†   (source)
  • Even Baretski is behaving less callously.†   (source)
  • His father's friends were horrified to learn about Clara's callous dismissal and the impugning of her character.†   (source)
  • How could anyone be so callous as to put a gun to my daughter's head?†   (source)
  • Did I mention she was a former pet, callously discarded by her Indonesian owners?†   (source)
  • The hands on Eddie's childhood glass then were hard and calloused and red with anger, and he went through his younger years whacked, lashed, and beaten.†   (source)
  • 'You didn't realise this was coming?' said a high girlish voice, sounding callously amused, and Harry, moving slightly to his right, saw that Trelawney's terrifying vision was nothing other than Professor Umbridge.†   (source)
  • Of course, all their names were more of a joke than anything, probably a callous way for the Creators—WICKED or whoever had done this to them—to distance themselves from the real people they'd stolen from real mothers and fathers.†   (source)
  • My grandfather straightens his fork on his napkin and says, " 'That girl' is named Juli, and no, she isn't 'working me too hard,' as you so callously put it."†   (source)
  • Letters to the newspaper condemned the jury for its callousness and for sullying the name of justice in Savannah.†   (source)
  • His hand was calloused but sturdy.†   (source)
  • I stare at the ridged and calloused skin welted by thick brown fate lines.†   (source)
  • How could they be so callous?†   (source)
  • Her fingers are rough, calloused.†   (source)
  • DANFORTH: Then you tell me that you sat in my court, callously lying, when you knew that people would hang by your evidence?†   (source)
  • He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness.†   (source)
  • His hands would turn numb and callous after hours of hanging on.†   (source)
  • I tell her about his ocean eyes and calloused fingers.†   (source)
  • "Callous," said Alice.†   (source)
  • The article itself is callous and mean, almost an attack on the James family.†   (source)
  • "And I hope this doesn't sound callous and cold to you," she said.†   (source)
  • That may sound callous, but your teammates are absolutely relying on the colleague with the grenade, because the guy upstairs might also have one, and that danger must be taken out.†   (source)
  • I'm the opposite of callous, Mercer.†   (source)
  • —as though cruelty and callousness were the norm, ordinary decency the marvel.†   (source)
  • Her archer's fingers were rough and calloused.†   (source)
  • Instead, without warning, Topo swung a calloused fist at my face.†   (source)
  • I think he's too sensitive for the callous way this class looks at things.†   (source)
  • She touched her rough, calloused hand to the other girl's rough, calloused hand, and they slipped out into the midst of other girls beginning tentative dance steps.†   (source)
  • Are they so callous?†   (source)
  • Sophie Mol wanted to know, tender London hands clasped in calloused Ayemenem ones.†   (source)
  • Mack was born somewhere in the Midwest, a farm boy in an Irish-American family committed to calloused hands and rigorous rules.†   (source)
  • His palm feels hard and calloused.†   (source)
  • I bled a bit and hoped that I would callous soon.†   (source)
  • "You have to understand; we're trained to see things as logically as possible," says Cara. "So don't think that I'm callous. But..."†   (source)
  • At the end of the interview, Sharon took both my hands in hers—cool, a bit calloused, I'd read she was an avid golfer—and wished me well.†   (source)
  • But the other man is …. cold, callous, demanding, selfish—as harsh and cruel as a winter wind.†   (source)
  • He looks at all the options — it's thoroughness, not callousness.†   (source)
  • The reason why, if he were not more than two thousand years dead, he would have gladly rubbed him out is that he saw him as a prototype for the many millions of self-satisfied and truly ignorant teachers throughout history who have smugly and callously killed the creative spirit of their students with this dumb ritual of analysis, this blind, rote, eternal naming of things.†   (source)
  • It is not unusual to find ice-cold calculation behind the most callous decisions.†   (source)
  • What could his calloused hands produce to make her smile?†   (source)
  • Her schooldays were her most miserable days, she was unsentimental to the point of callousness about the women's college she had attended, nothing displeased her more than to be set in the middle of a group of people who played Remember Old So-and-So.†   (source)
  • Otto reproduced a number of the tattoos ornamenting the subject's over muscled chest, arms, and small and calloused but girlish hands.†   (source)
  • I could not believe Helen could be so callous to say this in front of Mahtob.†   (source)
  • Laying a friendly old work-calloused hand on my head, he changed the conversation altogether, saying, "Son, you need a haircut.†   (source)
  • However callous a warder may be, he is usually just carrying out prison policy.†   (source)
  • I'm appalled at Cain's callousness.†   (source)
  • Some refugee advocates in the crowd began to attack the residents as callous, and even as racist.†   (source)
  • His fingers were calloused, tough from the guitar.†   (source)
  • "Any moment now," said Bigwig callously.†   (source)
  • "I think it came out more callously than I'd intended."†   (source)
  • His cheeks were fallen in to such an extent that the blinking red eyes above looked larger; it was as though the old rascal's crimes of callous selfishness and greed had suddenly aged him.†   (source)
  • The actual figure is more like one in eight—but the advocates know it would take a callous person to publicly dispute their claims.†   (source)
  • Its body was covered with rough hair, plagued with small ticks, and the skin was hardened with the scales of a remora fish, but unlike the priest's description, its human parts were more like those of a sickly angel than of a man, for its hands were tense and agile, its eyes large and gloomy, and on its shoulder blades it had the scarred-over and calloused stumps of powerful wings which must have been chopped off by a woodsman's ax.†   (source)
  • And as his calloused hands closed tight,I barely heard his snarl, betraying absolutely no pity: You don't know what sorry is, little girl.†   (source)
  • Then she would reproach herself for her own callousness.†   (source)
  • In retrospect, the grossest immorality of the 1980s took place not in San Francisco bathhouses, but in the corridors of power where self-righteous leaders displayed callous indifference to the spread of the disease.†   (source)
  • He could be petty and vindictive and callous and unfair, brutal and unyielding.†   (source)
  • Calloused hands gripped his biceps on both sides and led him out the unbolted compound doors.†   (source)
  • His fingers were calloused and thick, rough against her pale skin.†   (source)
  • It seemed callous, but in war the mind shuts down about things like that.†   (source)
  • The bird was smashed between them, and the boy felt a calloused thumb probe for the socket of his eye.†   (source)
  • Honestly, he can be callous.†   (source)
  • I wanted to see the callous indifference crack in his eyes.†   (source)
  • Weak and feverish already, I had little reserve; and handling the dead body with such a purpose caused me nausea, Lestat was laughing, telling me callously that I would feel so different once I was a vampire that I would laugh, too.†   (source)
  • Yossarian missed Nurse Duckett so much that he went searching hungrily through the streets for Luciana, whose laugh and invisible scar he had never forgotten, or the boozy, blowzy, bleary-eyed floozy in the overloaded white brassiere and unbuttoned orange satin blouse whose naughty salmon-colored cameo ring Aarfy had thrown away so callously through the window of her car.†   (source)
  • The speed of the line was cutting his hands badly but he had always known this would happen and he tried to keep the cutting across the calloused . parts and not let the line slip into the palm nor cut the fingers If the boy was here he would wet the coils of line, he thought.†   (source)
  • In turn we walked up, took his ancient, calloused hand and wished him a good day.†   (source)
  • She wore no makeup, and her feet were dusty and callous.†   (source)
  • He wasn't callous and he wasn't jaded.†   (source)
  • Outside those territories, it was an easy shorthand for a villain—rich, corrupt, and callous—in a thousand entertainments.†   (source)
  • In his callousness, he would knock upon the doors of the ailing, saying if they wanted a grave he would dig it then and there or not at all.†   (source)
  • Apart from a quickly suppressed urge to scream, all that came into her head was a string of questions, so objective and practical that they seemed callous.†   (source)
  • Lourdes felt his calloused palm, the metal of his ring clapping her temple.†   (source)
  • He wasn't sure why he was doing this, why these men's callousness mattered to him, but before he quite realized the enormity of his overreaction, he battered the door with the guy's face, battered it again, and then a third time.†   (source)
  • Perhaps my soul, now as calloused as my hands, could have borne such a wedding.†   (source)
  • We were puzzled, too, by the Sealand woman, for there was no callousness in her mind, nor any great concern either: just a slight distaste, as if for an unavoidable, but unexceptional, necessity.†   (source)
  • Terribly callous.†   (source)
  • "How do you sleep at night?" asked Max, incredulous at her callous pragmatism.†   (source)
  • I was concerned with the real workers-the men of calloused hands who keep a factory going.†   (source)
  • JANE [screams] How can you be so callous!†   (source)
  • His only hand was soft and smooth, not like the rough, red, calloused hands of farmers.†   (source)
  • Then they would use that knowledge callously, and with deadly intent.†   (source)
  • When I asked if I might meet her sister, she was evasive, callous.†   (source)
  • He couldn't even speak out against the obvious violence and destruction, after black groups had insisted they were "demonstrations" against the callousness of Korean merchants and the unjust acquittal of the Korean storeowner who'd shot and killed Saranda Harlans.†   (source)
  • The tone of soldiers' letters as well as their behavior did take on a more negative, cynical, callous, even brutal quality as time went on.†   (source)
  • She had the calloused work-hardened hands of a field slave.†   (source)
  • He felt her calloused hand move gently over his swollen jaw long before he saw her red-rimmed eyes peering down at him.†   (source)
  • But ignoring him seemed callous.†   (source)
  • Despite his outward callousness, Bruenor realized how true some of the drow's accusations had rung; he had come to care for the people who had settled on the banks of the three lakes.†   (source)
  • That sounds callous.†   (source)
  • Sadly, even as my life continued to spiral out of control, like a downed duck falling from the sky, I failed to realize that "callous" also described me as a man.†   (source)
  • I cannot be as certain about the effect on the catfish, for my unfeeling cousin — once the hooferaw had died down a little — callously flushed the toilet.†   (source)
  • The callousness of those spear shafts on the woman's back and shoulders survives time and translation.†   (source)
  • Lemm's hands were calloused stumps and his forearms as thick as the veneer cores he sawed.†   (source)
  • Those evil men, those evil and callous men!†   (source)
  • The lynching and the callous decision of the Pearl River County Grand Jury were surely on all their minds.†   (source)
  • And it was here, as I say, that his punishing callousness turned into outright persecution.†   (source)
  • But he had not felt quite as callous as that.†   (source)
  • The word was a reproach upon them all, much more grave, they were sure, than Mary had intended, so that to spare her regret they all hastened to say, kindly and as if somewhat callously, "No, let's not.†   (source)
  • But acting without selfish motive or private bias, those who follow the dictates of an intelligent conscience are not aristocrats, demagogues, eccentrics or callous politicians insensitive to the feelings of the public.†   (source)
  • The shadow of the pear tree in the center of the garden lay callous on the ground.†   (source)
  • Sansom looked at Rod's ribs, glanced at his dirty, calloused feet and smiled.†   (source)
  • "You should have thought of that before you married me," said Dick, and she blazed into fury because of his callous injustice.†   (source)
  • ...in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews...   (source)
  • Callous as they were to my suffering, they were equally callous to their own when anything befell them.   (source)
  • …he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not;   (source)
    callous = heartlessness (cruel lack of concern for others)
  • They need their callousness, they need their ignorance.†   (source)
  • But callousness was his only protection against such a helpless situation.†   (source)
  • They held it against me as well that I was at first calm and in good spirits, with full and clear eyes, which they took for callousness; but if I'd been weeping and crying, they would have said it showed my guilt; for they'd already decided I was guilty, and once people make their minds up that you have done a crime, then anything you do is taken as proof of it; and I don't think I could have scratched myself or wiped my nose without it being written up in the newspapers, and malicious…†   (source)
  • Especially after Rosalie's callousness.†   (source)
  • The violence from below was then productive of nothing but a retaliatory violence from above, the dream of justice became subsumed into the callousness of reality, and people settled in to a quarter century of life-waste and spirit- waste, of hardening attitudes and narrowing possibilities that were the natural result of political solidarity, traumatic suffering and sheer emotional self-protectiveness.†   (source)
  • They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference.†   (source)
  • And here I was, callously throwing away everything she wanted in life like it was garbage.†   (source)
  • The prison photos were horrific, and the media callously aired them all, even long after the Solomons' private burial ceremony.†   (source)
  • I am not saying she was cruel or callous.†   (source)
  • He sidled closer to her, and his fingers brushed hers—calloused, warm, and hard.†   (source)
  • I am sorry I was so callous about the matter.†   (source)
  • It was strong and calloused, a sculptor's hand that knew hard hours of work with hammer and chisel.†   (source)
  • Alice Calais-Callous was timid, but she liked us.†   (source)
  • Happily these rumours were unfounded; but how craven — how callous!†   (source)
  • It sounds callous and uncaring, and I'm not surprised he hasn't told this story to anyone else.†   (source)
  • I sees the palms of his hands calloused to granite, and the long fingers curled up and still.†   (source)
  • Their hands were thickly calloused, their arms puckered with old scars.†   (source)
  • "You're snide, Mae, and you're mean, and you're callous."†   (source)
  • He saw me watching and rubbed self-consciously at his calloused hands.†   (source)
  • After all, they named her Alice Callous.†   (source)
  • She tested the tips with a finger, and winced as a shard of bone pricked her calloused skin.†   (source)
  • His fingers had been more calloused than I imagined, but his palms were smooth.†   (source)
  • But Dorian held fast to her calloused palm.†   (source)
  • I'm Alice Calais," she said, but she said callous.†   (source)
  • His grip was solid, his hand calloused and scarred.†   (source)
  • His palm was too rough and calloused for a history professor's.†   (source)
  • But I don't want to become a calloused man.†   (source)
  • The old man radiated good health and vitality as he extended a strong, calloused hand.†   (source)
  • They were delicate hands, long-fingered, but calloused as her brothers' were.†   (source)
  • I shuddered now in disbelief that I'd ever been so callous.†   (source)
  • She had well-muscled arms and calloused hands.†   (source)
  • She held up her calloused, grimy fingers.†   (source)
  • How could he be so calloused, so cold-blooded?†   (source)
  • She stared at her bent, calloused hands.†   (source)
  • His fingertips were calloused from years of playing.†   (source)
  • I'm expecting him to be brusque, but his hands are—not gentle, exactly, but not callous, either.†   (source)
  • Percy tried to ignore her sour breath and her calloused hands clinging to his neck.†   (source)
  • Annabeth wondered how even Hades could be so callous.†   (source)
  • It seemed to Newt everyone was being mighty callous about Lippy, who lay on the riverbank.†   (source)
  • True, work in the fields had calloused her hands, but it had given her a strong, erect body.†   (source)
  • With that confession, he lunged for me and put his calloused hands on my shoulder and pushed.†   (source)
  • Her hands were calloused and blistered from working with rope.†   (source)
  • Bigwig shuddered, partly at Chervil's tone of callous indifference and partly at his own memories.†   (source)
  • I reached out my calloused hand for theirs, and it was time for all of us to grin and bear it.†   (source)
  • "There is another option," he said, scratching the sole of one foot with the calloused heel of the other.†   (source)
  • Well, well. said Greyback, and Harry could hear the tiniest note of trepidation in that callous voice, and knew that Greyback was wondering whether he had just indeed just attacked and bound the son of a Ministry Official.†   (source)
  • They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy—not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.†   (source)
  • In her head, she saw Zaman's thick, calloused hands close around Aziza's arms; she saw them pull, gently at first, then harder, then with force to pry Aziza loose from her.†   (source)
  • It sounds so callous, matter-of-fact.†   (source)
  • There was an indecent excitement in her voice, the same callous pleasure Harry had heard as she watched Professor Trelawney dissolving with misery in the Entrance Hall.†   (source)
  • If we are callous, and leave the whole thing to 'cold reason,' we might think it was actually quite in order that millions of people die in a world that is threatened by overpopulation.†   (source)
  • When he turned the light on in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes.†   (source)
  • Callous?†   (source)
  • I recalled the working men with their calloused palms and sun-beaten faces whose hardened eyes were forged from the heat of foundries or from under the sun's gaze — and I remembered the stream which emanated from those dense eyes, how it pulled something raw and smoldering from every one of us.†   (source)
  • "No, well, you're completely wrong," he said, "I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief.†   (source)
  • Then with the familiar feel of rooftop under my calloused feet I ran, jumped, ran, slid, and jumped again.†   (source)
  • "So what you're saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved," he said.†   (source)
  • I tried humming Snow Falling with the Late Autumn Leaves; Calloused Fingers and a Lute With Four Strings, but it wasn't the same as playing it.†   (source)
  • "You say it callous," I told Georgina.†   (source)
  • His hands were wide and calloused.†   (source)
  • It was calloused, but not rough.†   (source)
  • Celaena stumbled, her calloused feet slipping on the smooth floor as she straightened herself She looked back to see another six guards appear.†   (source)
  • And for several weeks Alice Calais-Callous gave no evidence of being either really crazy or interesting.†   (source)
  • Alice Calais-Callous squinted.†   (source)
  • Her fingers were surprisingly calloused—in all the spots where the hilt of a sword or dagger might rest.†   (source)
  • Her hands, well calloused from years of harvesting, were stripped of their toughness and became soft in the wash water.†   (source)
  • Like death, his father's presence was cold and often callous, but it was reed—brutally honest, inescapably dependable.†   (source)
  • Once again, his arm tries to slide around my shoulder, and I shrink from the touch of his calloused skin.†   (source)
  • Then her hand dropped and sought mine, as it lay in my lap, and she laced her slender fingers into my chapped and calloused ones.†   (source)
  • "You don't have to be callous at all.†   (source)
  • Callous, ruthless, self-interested.†   (source)
  • Gripping my hand in rough calloused fingers, he jumped off the branch, dragging me with him into the wind.†   (source)
  • Looking at the girls' terrible burns and sorry state, how can I possibly be so callous as to deny them a bit of happiness?†   (source)
  • The arguments were convincing on a rational level, but no one knew Moody's paradoxical personality as well as I. Moody was a loving husband and father, yet given to callous disregard for the needs and desires of his own family.†   (source)
  • Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer we had had on Robben Island.†   (source)
  • They were gone forever, and it seemed callous of him to be too happy about reclaiming only one of three.†   (source)
  • I picture those hands as mine really are, large with slender fingers and calloused knuckles from hours at the punching bag.†   (source)
  • He broke his sacred oath the very next year, when he spent the holiday in a hotel room instead in intellectual conversation with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, who had Dori Duz's dog tags on for the occasion and who henpecked Yossarian sententiously for being cynical and callous about Thanksgiving, even though she didn't believe in God just as much as he didn't.†   (source)
  • My legs seemed to move slower and slower as I fought my way through the callous crowd, but the hands on the huge clock tower didn't slow.†   (source)
  • He sat low in the driver's seat, his hat scrunched down upon his knobby head while he clutched the reins in his calloused hands.†   (source)
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