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dissemble
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  • THE VERY complexity of her feelings confirmed Briony in her view that she was entering an arena of adult emotion and dissembling from which her writing was bound to benefit.†   (source)
  • Though I'd tried to stay away from them as much as I could (as skilled a dissembler as I was, I could barely be civil to him; everything about him, his pinkish skin, his nervous laugh, the hair sprouting out the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, made me want to jump on him and knock his horsey English teeth out; and wouldn't that be a surprise, I thought grimly, glaring at him across the table, if old antique-dealing Specs hauled off and busted his eggs for him?) still, as hard as I'd tried, I hadn't been able to stay away from Pippa, I'd hovered obtrusively and hated myself for it, so painfully excited had I been by her nearness: her bare feet at breakfast, bare legs, her voice.†   (source)
  • "Let us not trivialize or dissemble," he said.†   (source)
  • His judgments were strict and fair, and none could sway him through falsehood or dissembling.†   (source)
  • Incorrigible, said Dr. Bannerling, a devious dissembler.†   (source)
  • PENTASHIELD: a five-layer shield-generator field suitable for small areas such as doorways or passages (large reinforcing shields become increasingly unstable with each successive layer) and virtually impassable to anyone not wearing a dissembler tuned to the shield codes.†   (source)
  • Even under the greatest duress, my capability to dissemble was scarcely diminished.†   (source)
  • Something happened, then, in her face and in his—in his, wry panic and regret, quickly covered; in hers, an outraged warning, quickly dissembled.†   (source)
  • I dissembled.†   (source)
  • Around here, nothing is exempt from dissembling questions and critical examination-not even religion itself.†   (source)
  • His love for Tereza was beautiful, but it was also tiring: he had constantly had to hide things from her, sham, dissemble, make amends, buck her up, calm her down, give her evidence of his feelings, play the defendant to her jealousy, her suffering, and her dreams, feel guilty, make excuses and apologies.†   (source)
  • They control the language, you have to improvise and dissemble.†   (source)
  • But when I'd mentioned the Gospel of Thomas, I hadn't seen even the slightest flicker of recognition in Shay's eyes, and he'd been drugged—it would have been awfully hard to keep dissembling.†   (source)
  • The Spicers are dissemblers and braggarts and the Brotherhood is full of pirates.†   (source)
  • "Do you go out much for a walk," the King kept inquiring of Abigail and Nabby at each and every reception, though the King, they thought, at least dissembled better than the Queen, whose countenance, said Nabby, was "as hard and unfeeling as if carved out of an oak knot."†   (source)
  • You can't dissemble.†   (source)
  • She won scholarships to Vassar and Barnard, but instead she chose a school of hippies with no future, delicate men with women's lips and a dissembling in their eyes.†   (source)
  • Were they dissembling?†   (source)
  • He could dissemble and resist no longer.†   (source)
  • Seeing it convinced her that his solicitude was genuine, for to dissemble with one's inner self was incredibly difficult, and she did not believe that Murtagh could have deceived her so convincingly.†   (source)
  • His voice was stark, bereft of the power of dissembling which full consciousness brings.†   (source)
  • ROS leaps up, dissembling madly.†   (source)
  • That way she'll dissemble her pleasure.†   (source)
  • The commissar's naivete embarrassed him, but the sly sophistication of the commandant and his aide-two sneering and dissembling opportunists-was no better.†   (source)
  • After he had dissembled sufficiently, and before the worried manager could send out for a peeper salesman, Reich stopped before the bookshelves.†   (source)
  • He was not good at dissembling and he was very well understood.   (source)
    dissembling = hiding or disguising the truth
  • She still hated the Yankees with as fierce a hate as on the day when they tried to burn Tara, but she could dissemble that hate.   (source)
    dissemble = hide or disguise the truth of
  • Sometimes Scarlett found it hard to dissemble her feelings, for she still thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and her vagueness and vaporings irritated her unendurably.   (source)
  • When Mr Lenville in a sudden burst of passion called the emperor a miscreant, and then biting his glove, said, 'But I must dissemble,' instead of looking gloomily at the boards and so waiting for his cue, as is proper in such cases, he kept his eye fixed upon the London manager.   (source)
    dissemble = hide or disguise the truth
  • "In—in the Bowery; at a confectioner's," said Mrs. Penniman, who had a general idea that she ought to dissemble a little.   (source)
  • The obvious suggestions have been made—displace, transmute, dissemble.†   (source)
  • "Ah well," I said, dissembling, "perhaps I exaggerate.†   (source)
  • Procrastinate, obscure, prevaricate, dissemble, and delay all you like, Uncle, Ser Balon must still come face-to-face with Myrcella at the Water Gardens, and when he does he's like to see she's short an ear.†   (source)
  • That was partially true as far as it went — but, if we had not faced all the problems before they arose, we were well aware of those that were constantly with us, and of those the main one was the need of dissembling, of leading all the time a suffocating half-life with our families.†   (source)
  • However, if she dissembled she dissembled well; no sign of strain or fear crossed her face, she was as happy as a bird with her son, singing to him, playing with him, ducking and chuckling as if he were the most beautiful baby any woman could have.†   (source)
  • Poor Tom did not know and could not learn that dissembling successfully is one of the creative joys of a businessman.†   (source)
  • That is a great lady—with her I should dissemble.†   (source)
  • I would remember to dissemble for short periods, then I would forget and act straight and human again, not with the desireto harm anybody, but merely forgetting the artificial status of race and class.†   (source)
  • She had lived too long among people who dissembled politely not to feel disturbed at hearing her own thoughts put into words.†   (source)
  • Dissembling!†   (source)
  • How did one look into the heart and mind of a man who dissembled and denied?†   (source)
  • Pride must be dissembled; disdain dares not break out; egotism fears its own self.†   (source)
  • ...It took two expert mechanics half a day to dissemble it into its minutest parts and remove it, which only goes to prove the rare energy of sophomore humor under efficient leadership.†   (source)
  • Noting her dissembled distress Jude kissed her, and said it was time to go and see if the lodgings were ready.†   (source)
  • Now at the first broaching of the matter Captain Vere, taken by surprise, could not wholly dissemble his disquietude.†   (source)
  • He dissembled, and got quickly to bed.†   (source)
  • Her search was rewarded by the discovery of a very blond young man with a soft reddish beard, who, at the other end of the carriage, appeared to be dissembling himself behind an unfolded newspaper.†   (source)
  • But all those thoughts lasted for no more than a second, the time that it took him to raise his hand to his heart, to draw breath again and to contrive to smile, so as to dissemble his torment.†   (source)
  • And one proof that Swann was not mistaken when he believed in the real existence of this phrase, was that anyone with an ear at all delicate for music would at once have detected the imposture had Vinteuil, endowed with less power to see and to render its forms, sought to dissemble (by adding a line, here and there, of his own invention) the dimness of his vision or the feebleness of his hand.†   (source)
  • That course seemed finer and more humane—and I'm sure you know how Clavdia drawls the word out so charmingly in that magical, husky voice of hers—than silence and dissembling, and to that extent a weight was lifted from my heart, when you made your observation just now.†   (source)
  • pleasant memories, beneath the simplest words that Odette had ever spoken to him in those old days, words which he had believed as though they were the words of a Gospel, beneath her daily actions which she had recounted to him, beneath the most ordinary places, her dressmaker's flat, the Avenue du Bois, the Hippodrome, he could feel (dissembled there, by virtue of that temporal superfluity which, after the most detailed account of how a day has been spent, always leaves something over, that may serve as a hiding place for certain unconfessed actions), he could feel the insinuation of a possible undercurrent of falsehood which debased for him all that had remained most precious, hi†   (source)
  • The embarrassment grew—an odd embarrassment that was intended for manifestations in the uncontrolled regions of their own interiors, but, given the dissembling, semi-real quality of those manifestations, was directed instead to external reality.†   (source)
  • That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting, foolish young knave in his helm.†   (source)
  • The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the courtiers, which, however, failed to make the impression on the mind of the Saxon that had been designed.†   (source)
  • "You arrive in good time, monsieur," said the king, who, when his passions were raised to a certain point, could not dissemble; "I have learned some fine things concerning your Musketeers."†   (source)
  • It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope.†   (source)
  • "Perhaps," added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness exactly in proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, "if I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the we'pon, it would smoothe the little differences in our judgments."†   (source)
  • I shrieked, "dissemble no more!†   (source)
  • But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate.†   (source)
  • Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still.†   (source)
  • He did not even give himself the trouble to dissemble, and displayed it with affectation before the queen.†   (source)
  • In fact, we must not dissemble that the oscillation of the tall trees and the reflection of the moon in the dark underwood gave him serious uneasiness.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken him.†   (source)
  • "Ah," said he, dissembling his emotion under a feigned carelessness, "do not talk of such things, and suffer love pains?†   (source)
  • His eye took in at a glance the plump, cheerful countenance of the mistress of the place, and he at once perceived there was no occasion for dissembling with her, or of fearing anything from one blessed with such a joyous physiognomy.†   (source)
  • But in this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling.†   (source)
  • And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing.†   (source)
  • Why, the master-dissemblers there are around!†   (source)
  • She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign.†   (source)
  • If she had done that, she ceased to be an object of interest, she threw in her lot with the vulgarest of dissemblers: a woman engaged in a love affair with Beaufort "classed" herself irretrievably.†   (source)
  • Ah, but his adversary was not tongue-tied, either; he knew how to disrupt this angelic hallelujah with nasty, brilliant protests, declaring himself a partisan of life and its conservation and an opponent of the spirit of sedition lurking beneath such seraphic dissemblance.†   (source)
  • Are you such a good dissembler?†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences.†   (source)
  • Don't be such a dissembler!†   (source)
  • For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury.†   (source)
  • But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.†   (source)
  • Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.   (source)
    dissembling = hiding or disguising the truth
  • Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?   (source)
    dissemble = hide or disguise the truth
  • Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in it;   (source)
    dissemble = disguise
  • ...Good now, play one scene
    Of excellent dissembling, and let it look
    Like perfect honor.   (source)
    dissembling = playacting (deception)
  • You dissembling knight!   (source)
    dissembling = lying
  • O, hardness to dissemble!   (source)
    dissemble = hide or disguise the truth
  • There's no trust,
    No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,
    All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.   (source)
    dissemblers = deceivers
  • 26:24 He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him; 26:25 When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart.†   (source)
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-th" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She dissembleth" in older English, today we say "She dissembles."
  • A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions.†   (source)
  • What wicked and dissembling glass of mine Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?†   (source)
  • Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell Whom thou lov'st best: see thou dissemble not.†   (source)
  • His very hair is of the dissembling colour.†   (source)
  • The grove itself resembles Ida's wood; And Simois seem'd the well-dissembled flood.†   (source)
  • They meet; they wheel; they throw their darts afar With harmless rage and well-dissembled war.†   (source)
  • Rivers and Hastings, take each other's hand; Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.†   (source)
  • Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble: No man will seem to win.†   (source)
  • Shall we no more the Trojan walls renew, Or streams of some dissembled Simois view!†   (source)
  • The gold dissembled well their yellow hair, And golden chains on their white necks they wear.†   (source)
  • It is better to dissemble your wrong and not give this wicked man the chance of entering the house now and finding us alone; consider, señora, we are weak women and he is a man, and determined, and as he comes with such a base purpose, blind and urged by passion, perhaps before you can put yours into execution he may do what will be worse for you than taking your life.†   (source)
  • — Perhaps he doth dissemble!†   (source)
  • I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, Desire, Feare, Hope, &c; not the similitude or The Objects of the Passions, which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts.†   (source)
  • Yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as a maxim, that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians: they take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of these opinions, especially before the common people: but they suffer, and even encourage them to dispute concerning them in private with their priest, and other grave men, being confident that they will be cured of those mad opinions by having reason laid before them.†   (source)
  • To make me a wicked wight," quoth she,
    "Lo, he dissimuleth* here in audience; *dissembles
    He stareth and woodeth* in his advertence."†   (source)
  • When we had passed the castle, we fell a fishing; but though I knew there was a bite, I dissembled the matter, in order to put out further to sea.†   (source)
  • And the sinner who heard dissembled not, but directed toward me his mind and his face, and was painted with dismal shame.†   (source)
  • I shall not dissemble that I feel an entire confidence in the arguments which recommend the proposed system to your adoption, and that I am unable to discern any real force in those by which it has been opposed.†   (source)
  • The satisfaction her husband expressed in the departure of Jenny, appeared now to be only dissembled; again, in the same instant, to be real; but yet to confirm her jealousy, proceeding from satiety, and a hundred other bad causes.†   (source)
  • —"Mr Jones," said she, "it is in vain to dissemble; if you will make me easy, you must entirely give her up; and as a proof of your intention, show me the letter."†   (source)
  • Right true it is your son Lucentio here Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him, Or both dissemble deeply their affections; And therefore, if you say no more than this, That like a father you will deal with him, And pass my daughter a sufficient dower, The match is made, and all is done: Your son shall have my daughter with consent.†   (source)
  • Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown.†   (source)
  • I that kill'd her husband and his father, To take her in her heart's extremest hate; With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, The bleeding witness of her hatred by; Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I no friends to back my suit withal, But the plain devil and dissembling looks, And yet to win her,—all the world to nothing!†   (source)
  • I'll not dissemble, sir: where'er I come, I love to be considerative; and 'tis true, I have at my free hours thought upon Some certain goods unto the state of Venice, Which I do call "my Cautions;" and, sir, which I mean, in hope of pension, to propound To the Great Council, then unto the Forty, So to the Ten.†   (source)
  • for the squire is so set against me: and yet, if you should ever have my lady, as to be sure I now hopes heartily you will; for you are a generous, good-natured gentleman; and I am sure you loves her, and to be sure she loves you as dearly as her own soul; it is a matter in vain to deny it; because as why, everybody, that is in the least acquainted with my lady, must see it; for, poor dear lady, she can't dissemble: and if two people who loves one another a'n't happy, why who should be so?†   (source)
  • O thou dissembling cub!†   (source)
  • He feigned, therefore, some excuse of business for his departure, and promised to return soon again; and took leave of his brother with so well-dissembled content, that, as the captain played his part to the same perfection, Allworthy remained well satisfied with the truth of the reconciliation.†   (source)
  • But I,—that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore,—sinc†   (source)
  • Say rapid Aufidus with awful dread Runs backward from the sea, and hides his head, When the great Trojan on his bank appears; For that's as true as thy dissembled fears Of my revenge.†   (source)
  • To whom the yawning pilot, half asleep: "Me dost thou bid to trust the treach'rous deep, The harlot smiles of her dissembling face, And to her faith commit the Trojan race?†   (source)
  • I beg the grace But only for a night's revolving space: Thyself a boy, assume a boy's dissembled face; That when, amidst the fervor of the feast, The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast, And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains, Thou may'st infuse thy venom in her veins.†   (source)
  • Now, sinking underneath a load of grief, From death alone she seeks her last relief; The time and means resolv'd within her breast, She to her mournful sister thus address'd (Dissembling hope, her cloudy front she clears, And a false vigor in her eyes appears): "Rejoice!" she said.†   (source)
  • With anxious pleasure when Juturna view'd Th' increasing fright of the mad multitude, When their short sighs and thick'ning sobs she heard, And found their ready minds for change prepar'd; Dissembling her immortal form, she took Camertus' mien, his habit, and his look; A chief of ancient blood; in arms well known Was his great sire, and he his greater son.†   (source)
  • Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou.†   (source)
  • 26:4 I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.†   (source)
  • Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death, I will not be thy executioner.†   (source)
  • So spake the false dissembler unperceived;
    For neither Man nor Angel can discern
    Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
    Invisible, except to God alone,
    By his permissive will, through Heaven and Earth:
    And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
    At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
    Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
    Where no ill seems: Which now for once beguiled
    Uriel, though regent of the sun, and held
    The sharpest-sighted Spirit of all in Heaven;
    Who to the fraudulent impostor foul,
    In his uprightness, answer thus returned.†   (source)
  • Is our whole dissembly appeared?†   (source)
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