toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

imperious
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • In the context of the lobby, where the actress was struggling to rein in her hounds, the hoarseness of her voice had given the impression of an imperious young lady prone to shouting.†   (source)
  • "Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.†   (source)
  • He was obdurate and imperious, not even slightly defensive.†   (source)
  • His cartoon voice has made an even stronger impression on me than has my grandmother's imperious wisdom.†   (source)
  • One evening when Hauptmann is down the hall in his office, Werner glances over at imperious, sleepy Volkheimer in the corner and says, "That prisoner."†   (source)
  • Ellen stood on tiptoe again, and made an imperious gesture with her arm.†   (source)
  • What was less comprehensible, however, was how Robbie imperiously raised his hand now, as though issuing a command which Cecilia dared not disobey.†   (source)
  • She didn't hear Mrs. Liddell knocking at the door, the annoyed but futile turning of the doorknob, or the imperious demand: "Alice, open this door.†   (source)
  • Like the nuns, this woman has a slightly imperious air, as if she is used to getting her way.†   (source)
  • He was learning how to negotiate with imperious Yankees.†   (source)
  • No no," he said, shushing me imperiously as I tried to talk over him, pouring me a new shot, sliding the glass across the table to me, "what is he giving you?†   (source)
  • BANE looks down at HARRY imperiously.†   (source)
  • Even now they resist affinity like cats in a bag: two blondes—the one short and fierce, the other tall and imperious—flanked by matched brunettes like bookends, the forward twin leading hungrily while the rear one sweeps the ground in a rhythmic limp.†   (source)
  • Even in death he is emphatic and imperious.†   (source)
  • But it still squealed to a stop, spitting sparks from rails and wire, when Tante Jans stood imperiously before the Beje.†   (source)
  • With some guilt, he thinks of Zabi and Lemar back in San Jose, who have long professed their dislike of their Afghan names, who are fast turning into little tyrants, into the imperious American children he and Nahil had vowed they would never raise.†   (source)
  • With an imperious meow he led her into the hall.†   (source)
  • There are three more sharp raps, as if someone is knocking at the door, imperiously demanding entry.†   (source)
  • Kvothe motioned Chronicler forward imperiously, then turned to grab two thick glasses and a bottle seemingly at random.†   (source)
  • She was a masculine German with a metallic accent and an imperious gaze that had no relationship to her puerile passions.†   (source)
  • Couples brought their dogs with them and hooked their leashes to the wrought-iron tables where the dogs would contentedly curl up at their feet or sometimes even sit up at the table beside their masters, holding their heads high in an imperious manner as if miffed by the waiters' inattentiveness.†   (source)
  • His house turned a great, immaculate wall of shuttered windows to the sun, cedars surrounding it on three sides imperiously.†   (source)
  • With an imperious gesture, he snatched the gray cloth off the open flap and gazed downward into the mystery.†   (source)
  • Then he set the cleaver down, stepped back, reached behind him without looking for a towel one of my sisters somehow had there waiting, and as he wiped his hands he said imperiously to his sons, "Cut it up.†   (source)
  • She stared imperiously across the Brute Squad.†   (source)
  • She was too imperious and too erratic.†   (source)
  • Sammy yelled imperiously.†   (source)
  • She stared imperiously over the heads of the people at the bar, into the farther room, where the bandstand seemed to be, and the raised dance floor.†   (source)
  • He presses his lips into an imperious line.†   (source)
  • The driver's wife, a fat woman wearing mirror sunglasses, looked at Donna and Tad with imperious contempt.†   (source)
  • She started to squirm and then reached her hand imperiously toward Rosalie.†   (source)
  • She means to be imperious but can barely keep from giggling.†   (source)
  • Now she held up her hand, imperiously, and silenced Hagar's whines.†   (source)
  • 'Leave the child!' said the woman abruptly, with a quick, imperious gesture.†   (source)
  • They could not have recognized in this tall, imperious man the little boy with chestnut curls who had played in this same courtyard many years before.†   (source)
  • They soon finished with the clothing on the couches and the luggage on the floor, and they were ransacking a cedar closet when the door to the inner room opened again and a man who was very distinguished-looking from the neck up padded into view imperiously on bare feet.†   (source)
  • Professor McGrath was tall, athletic-looking, a bit imperious.†   (source)
  • He's eye to eye with the painting's imperious, princely lad.†   (source)
  • There was color in his cheeks, and his voice, which had been weak the day before, was imperious, truly Masai-like.†   (source)
  • He turned slowly to look at her with an air of imperious annoyance.†   (source)
  • Then around me everyone was singing Lead me, lead me to a rock that is higher than I. And as though the sound contained some force more imperious than the image of the scene of which it was the living connective tissue, I was pulled back to its immediacy.†   (source)
  • So tall and imperious.†   (source)
  • We entered through the kitchen and could hear the scurrying feet above us, punctuated by the high, imperious voices of the Bradford ladies giving their commands.†   (source)
  • He says she suffers from an "imperious disposition."†   (source)
  • …children and two placid octogenarians in wheelchairs, a pair of tall Arab princes in akals and kaffiyehs and flowing djellabas, preceded by fierce bodyguards and trailed by retinues, beacon-red tourists drifting homeward on the astringent fumes of medicated sunburn lotion, pale tourists arriving with the dampish smell of cloudy country clinging to them—and, like a white boat strangely serene in a typhoon, the man in the Panama hat, sailing imperiously through the polygenic sea.†   (source)
  • When the Shavepate had commanded the Brazen Beasts, he had favored a serpent's-head mask, imperious and frightening.†   (source)
  • She entered and threw the door closed with a casual, imperious gesture, the gesture of an owner.†   (source)
  • Imperiously, Sarah held out her hand, waiting until Lee took it.†   (source)
  • "Yes," said Rasmussen, gazing imperiously about the room.†   (source)
  • The company commander, a slightly overweight youth, stared at my hands with an imperious demeanor and petulant, dissatisfied eyes.†   (source)
  • A brittle, attractive redhead, she lost out on beauty through the accident of a razor-planed, imperious nose.†   (source)
  • 'And so imperious!†   (source)
  • Nor could loutish self-gratification quell this imperious, feverish desire.†   (source)
  • KATE goes out on the porch after HELEN, while KELLER knocks on ANNIE'S door, then rattles the knob, imperiously.†   (source)
  • Every few feet an imperious command.†   (source)
  • Encased in a glass-paneled office, looking imperiously out on a confusion of jangling telephones, scurrying copy boys, aged gents in green eyeshades, and marvelously cynical-looking men at typewriters who could only be reporters, he seemed as hospitable as a famished tiger.†   (source)
  • Where's Daddy? he shouted imperiously ignoring her arms.†   (source)
  • As Aldo staggered away, Gabriella reached out her hand and with her fingertips touched his cello-or rather its wrinkled outer covering, at once soft and imperious.†   (source)
  • Powell went up to Crabbe's ebony and silver office, knocked, heard the imperious: "Come!" and entered.†   (source)
  • "I didn't steal it. I found it lyin' right beside the road."
    George's hand remained outstretched imperiously.   (source)
    imperiously = in a manner that expects obedience
  • She points imperiously at the door.   (source)
    imperiously = arrogantly
  • The first was a great, red-headed gentleman, of an imperious and flushed face, who...   (source)
    imperious = arrogant or domineering
  • Mrs Weasley beckoned imperiously to her sons and Hermione.†   (source)
  • "Hurry up, Hokey!" said Hepzibah imperiously.†   (source)
  • My habit is to drag myself imperiously through a world that owes me unpayable debts.†   (source)
  • "What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?" she said imperiously.†   (source)
  • She pointed imperiously toward the vanity table.†   (source)
  • She beckoned imperiously with her index finger.†   (source)
  • I do not stutter and I do not slur the King's English," he thundered imperiously.†   (source)
  • She snapped her fingers imperiously, and her minions scurried toward her, their gray heads bent.†   (source)
  • Her amber eyes surveyed the room imperiously, her head swiveling occasionally to gaze at her snoring master.†   (source)
  • Jace barely had the blade in his hand when a medium-size Drevak demon scuttled toward them, chittering imperiously.†   (source)
  • She beckoned them forwards imperiously and they came, shuffling their large feet and looking awkward.†   (source)
  • Jim Williams held Driggers's card between his thumb and forefinger, imperiously weighing the pros and cons.†   (source)
  • " 'I hate giving straight answers to a straight question,' " Grandmother, as Mrs. Culver, said imperiously—and completely in character.†   (source)
  • And you," he said, talking imperiously over me, "with Martin, apart from the fact I would not be here now and most likely you neither—"†   (source)
  • All three of them bowed low to him, and after regarding them imperiously for a moment, Buckbeak bent his scaly front knees and allowed Hermione to rush forward and stroke his feathery neck.†   (source)
  • — "And, and," said Boris imperiously, taking advantage of a lull in my response he was not expecting, "I want you to stop talking this stupid 'call' business right away.†   (source)
  • He could see the sky, a bit of the Ormenheid's gunwale, a stout barrel, and now an immensely fat bottom as Coros strode imperiously about the deck in his enormous silk pantaloons.†   (source)
  • As soon as she spied me through the glass, she chucked the spoon on the floor—where it left a divot in the wood—and pointed in my direction imperiously.†   (source)
  • Knowing that he had to assert his authority, smothering the shameful realization of the sort of substitute he was choosing, Dr. Stadler said imperiously, in a tone of sarcastic rudeness, "The next time I call for you, you'd better do something about that car of yours.†   (source)
  • Philon stands imperiously.†   (source)
  • He rose imperiously and began pacing the carpet behind his desk, every inch the General again, every inch the Great Man defending the sanctity of his myth.†   (source)
  • "Act now, act now," whispered Griphook in Harry's ear, "the Imperious Curse!"†   (source)
  • He moved just as he had in parades before his captives, head high, chest thrust out, eyes imperious.†   (source)
  • Serious delirious imperious weary us deleterious ways.†   (source)
  • His hand was out, his chin raised, his tone imperious.†   (source)
  • Some of her usual imperious air was back, her mouth a thin line, her jaw set with determination.†   (source)
  • He had the same imperious, lordly way of his father.†   (source)
  • But he seems relieved, his tone imperious.†   (source)
  • Whenever they hear the imperious cries of the people in a crisis, the dead respond.†   (source)
  • The imperious scowl tightened to a twinkling smile; the door opened wide to admit them.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Nightwing lets her imperious gaze fall upon us.†   (source)
  • Lilith turned slowly, her gaze sliding over Jace, cold and imperious.†   (source)
  • Her voice was not loud, but it had the imperious helplessness of a shriek.†   (source)
  • Lady Markham fidgets, casts a glance toward her imperious friend again.†   (source)
  • The class laughed nervously, but it was laughter instantly stifled by Reynolds's imperious glare.†   (source)
  • Major Mudge entered the courtroom with an imperious leanness and stride.†   (source)
  • ANNIE regards him stonily, but HELEN after a scowling moment tugs at her hand again, imperious.†   (source)
  • I gave my head an imperious tilt, set my shoulders a little differently and made a couple of mental adjustments.†   (source)
  • Now he saw that the girl was almost a young woman, poised and imperious, quite the little Pre-Raphaelite princess with her bangles and tresses, her painted nails and velvet choker.†   (source)
  • There the two of them were, the immigrant from rural Poland, his eyes ringed with fatigue, facing off in his halting English against the imperious Yankee.†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza spoke in a most tenuous voice, but with the most imperious resolution of which he was capable: "Be that as it may, I cannot answer without knowing what she thinks.†   (source)
  • The bombers flew on, imperious.†   (source)
  • On Monday, however, when he returned to his house on the Street of Windows, he discovered a letter floating in a puddle inside the entrance, and on the wet envelope he recognized at once the imperious handwriting that so many changes in life had not changed, and he even thought he could detect the nocturnal perfume of withered gardenias, because after the initial shock, his heart told him everything: it was the letter he had been waiting for, without a moment's respite, for over half a…†   (source)
  • My mother loved her sister and brother-in-law; they always made her feel special and welcome—they certainly made me feel that way— and my mother doubtless appreciated a little time away from my grandmother's imperious wisdom.†   (source)
  • Maryse's tone was imperious.†   (source)
  • Halfway down the carpeted staircase, a tall imperious woman with a face that age and cosmetics had rendered into a cold mask of itself.†   (source)
  • She adopts an imperious tone.†   (source)
  • Celibidache was a conductor from the old school, an imperious and strong-willed man with very definite ideas about how music ought to be played—and about who ought to play music.†   (source)
  • Emerging from the carriage, Cambrylla hugged her scarlet robes close and bent to address the imperious imp.†   (source)
  • She was as beautiful as an autumn sunset, proud and imperious, with two dark eyebrows slanted like upraised wings, lips as bright and red as holly berries, and midnight hair bound under a diamond diadem.†   (source)
  • The fact that they did not prodded the interest of the imperious woman who kept glancing over in his direction.†   (source)
  • Those familiar reference points-all-nighters, pizza deliveries, imperious professors, hours of idle (though not pointless) chitchat-are part of the American educational package and would again define Cedric's life.†   (source)
  • She appeared strange and imperious, with her embroidered dress and the gold chains in her hair and her dusky skin, which at the moment had a reddish cast, due to the color of the fabric walls.†   (source)
  • The Queen held up an imperious hand.†   (source)
  • But then the starter would set the field off, War Admiral would drop down and skim over the track, and everyone would forgive him for his imperiousness.†   (source)
  • In fury, the balding imperious professor of law stared at the gray-faced old disbarred and dishonored attorney in front of him.†   (source)
  • He lifted his chin with an imperious air and seemed to gaze coldly upon something within one of the pentacles.†   (source)
  • I see in my mind's eye the fatal atmosphere of that jam-packed auditorium: The Founder holds the audience within the gentle palm of his eloquence, rocking it, soothing it, instructing it; and there below, the rapt faces blushed by the glow of the big pot-bellied stove now turned cherry-red with its glowing; yes, the spellbound rows caught in the imperious truth of his message.†   (source)
  • He had the direct, imperious manner of an aristocrat or a roughneck; he looked like one and was dressed like the other.†   (source)
  • Then I saw that you wore a long gown, the color of ice, like the tunic of a Grecian goddess, but had the short hair and the imperious profile of an American woman.†   (source)
  • I've decided I want to live like this always, Abigail," I said, making a sweeping imperious gesture with my arm.†   (source)
  • She could not see the road-the small stretch under the arch of branches at the foot of the hill was her only view of it-but she watched the car's ascent by the growing, imperious strain of the motor against the grades and the screech of the tires on curves.†   (source)
  • He was tall and young, his head of black hair was hatless in the cold wind, he wore a workman's leather jacket, but he did not look like a workman, there was too imperious an assurance in the way he walked.†   (source)
  • She let him look at it for a moment, almost as an act of condescending mercy to an adversary struggling to refuel his strength, then she asked, with a note of imperious pride in her voice, pointing at the inscription, "What's that?†   (source)
  • And down in front of the front steps the man in the long coat who had ushered them to the coffin now made an imperious gesture and, drawn by three shining black horses and one horse of a shining red-brown, a long, tall, narrow box of whorled and glittering black and of black glass was pulled forward a few feet, and then a foot more, so that its black and glittering rear end was just beyond the opening of the steps; and the men who carried their father's coffin now hesitated at the head…†   (source)
  • She falls to her knees to clasp HELEN'S hand, but HELEN pulls it free, stands almost bewildered, then drops to the ground, pats it swiftly, holds up her palm, imperious.†   (source)
  • The door opened slightly and Dr. Meade stood on the threshold, beckoning imperiously.†   (source)
  • Then a bell rang, and from the ceiling of the lift a loud speaker began, very softly and yet very imperiously, to issue its commands.†   (source)
  • Granma called imperiously, "Will!†   (source)
  • In him again, imperiously, was the desire to talk, to tell" his hands were lifted in mid-air and when he spoke he tried to charge into the tone of his words what he himself wanted to hear, what he needed.†   (source)
  • About twelve years later, at a time when the problem of Willie's personality more imperiously occupied my rare hours of speculation, I asked him, "Boss, do you remember the time we first got acquainted in the back room of Slade's joint?"†   (source)
  • Imperiously.†   (source)
  • Melanie had imperiously stopped her.†   (source)
  • Bonnie, awakened by the sound of voices in the hall, called sleepily but imperiously: "Daddy!" and Rhett started past Scarlett.†   (source)
  • "What?" she demanded, imperiously, as Lassiter broke off.†   (source)
  • "No, no—give it to me; and don't preach, please," Lily returned imperiously.†   (source)
  • He said imperiously: "The man is dead--the man is probably dead; sit down till you are rested."†   (source)
  • "Can you make apple pie?" he demanded, imperiously.†   (source)
  • The King interrupted him imperiously— "Peace!†   (source)
  • "Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously.†   (source)
  • But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more imperiously than ever.†   (source)
  • But in the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to Dickon.†   (source)
  • "Leave the room," he said imperiously; and they went out.†   (source)
  • "Malluch, here—nearer—to the chair," the master said, imperiously.†   (source)
  • 'Take him away, ma'am!' said Mr. Bumble imperiously.†   (source)
  • 'Put my hat down,' said Ralph, imperiously.†   (source)
  • No!" imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips.†   (source)
  • "Hush!" said Simonides, more imperiously than ever before in speech to Ben-Hur.†   (source)
  • "Come, come here," she cried, imperiously.†   (source)
  • —"Cosette!" he cried; "Cosette!" he repeated imperiously.†   (source)
  • "Stop!" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright's arm.†   (source)
  • "Answer me — speak again!" he ordered, imperiously and aloud.†   (source)
  • "Remain, then!" she continued imperiously, "and let us see the end."†   (source)
  • "Here, Dodo," said his master, imperiously.†   (source)
  • Poor justification this, in truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed!†   (source)
  • I won't have any quarreling!" cried Grushenka imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor.†   (source)
  • "Stay, Amrah!" the widow cried, imperiously.†   (source)
  • [Addressing the COMPANY imperiously.†   (source)
  • Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king,—king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place, humans included.†   (source)
  • "A plate of soup and a bottle of wine," said Chauvelin imperiously to Brogard, "then clear out of here—understand?†   (source)
  • But before he could add another word, Clutton rapped with the handle of his knife imperiously on the table.†   (source)
  • When he realized that his folly had become sweet and that the sweetness imperiously drew him, he likewise cast off that thought.†   (source)
  • Hans Castorp attempted to help them over it—as if it were his job—by imperiously taking over the conversation and tossing in the issue of the death penalty.†   (source)
  • She knew Helen, and had marked the whisper, when ordinarily Helen would have spoken imperiously, and not low.†   (source)
  • Suppose she proved it, imperiously!†   (source)
  • "No," she said, imperiously.†   (source)
  • Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.†   (source)
  • 'I hate you to be fidgeting in MY presence,' exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.†   (source)
  • That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious.†   (source)
  • It may have been a flash of honesty in him; or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer of his ship.†   (source)
  • Their disposition and their fortune allowed them to remain without employment; public opinion forbade it, too imperiously to be disobeyed.†   (source)
  • There was no knowing what impulse might seize him to-morrow, in this confounded place, where there was nothing to occupy him imperiously through the livelong day.†   (source)
  • His remonstrance, seconded, as it was, by a prompt and energetic action, did not fail to produce the submission to his order, which the occasion seemed, indeed, imperiously to require.†   (source)
  • *h The necessity of a national Government was less imperiously felt in the conduct of the internal policy of society; but there are certain general interests which can only be attended to with advantage by a general authority.†   (source)
  • But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water.†   (source)
  • It had happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring back at him.†   (source)
  • It had not been possible for him to spend less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer, even partially, from his daughter.†   (source)
  • They then retired within the walls, and first offering up their thanksgivings for past mercies, and petitioning for a continuance of the Divine favor throughout the coming night, they laid their tender forms on the fragrant couch, and in spite of recollections and forebodings, soon sank into those slumbers which nature so imperiously demanded, and which were sweetened by hopes for the morrow.†   (source)
  • 'Now,' said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure rather than pain.†   (source)
  • Although Mr. Crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed without noise, Sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get to work.†   (source)
  • Several of the chiefs had proposed deep and treacherous schemes to surprise the Delawares and, by gaining possession of their camp, to recover their prisoners by the same blow; for all agreed that their honor, their interests, and the peace and happiness of their dead countrymen, imperiously required them speedily to immolate some victims to their revenge.†   (source)
  • In some cases feudal honor enjoined revenge, and stigmatized the forgiveness of insults; in others it imperiously commanded men to conquer their own passions, and imposed forgetfulness of self.†   (source)
  • D'Artagnan, be it remembered, was only twenty years old, and at that age sleep has its imprescriptible rights which it imperiously insists upon, even with the saddest hearts.†   (source)
  • Raffles was about to speak, but Bulstrode anticipated him imperiously with the words, "Be silent, sir, and hear what I have to say.†   (source)
  • Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot.†   (source)
  • "Briefly," he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so doing pushing Porfiry back a little, "briefly, I want to know, do you acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not?†   (source)
  • For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one's feeling, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on!†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)