dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

detest
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • He could hardly believe what he was seeing, and although he detested flies, he was sorry for this one.   (source)
  • I detest kindness, he says.†   (source)
  • You know how they detest idleness.†   (source)
  • And why, even though they detested Williams in return, the Adlers always accepted.†   (source)
  • Now we detested the opposition and everything about them.†   (source)
  • Liver sausage and sauerkraut couldn't possibly appeal to Jess, and was something both girls had detested the thought of all their lives.†   (source)
  • "I detest the term 'Can Lit,' " I told ms.†   (source)
  • Otherwise, he detested Urdu and Muslims, which he naturally associated with the loss of our fortune.†   (source)
  • " That was the night he decided to "go for it," as he put it, which is a phrase I have personally detested ever since a bank I used to work for adopted the slogan for its employee productivity contest.†   (source)
  • To Nazi eyes, we Jews were a single, detested group, the exact opposite of the blond, blue-eyed, pure "Aryans."†   (source)
  • Andy and I had said our goodbyes the day before; though I knew he was sad to see me go, still my feelings were hurt that he hadn't stayed to see me off but instead had gone with the rest of the family up to the supposedly detested house in Maine.†   (source)
  • I'd be screaming at them, telling them how much I detested their blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence to it all, their simple-minded patriotism, their prideful ignorance, their love-it-or-leave-it platitudes, how they were sending me off to fight a war they didn't understand and didn't want to understand.†   (source)
  • The kind of house that is immediately familiar: a generically grand, unchallenging, new, new, new house that my wife would—and did—detest.†   (source)
  • I detested Forks.†   (source)
  • I detest it so much; I start to inspect his features more intently, trying to find a flaw.†   (source)
  • The name he had so detested, here hidden and preserved—that was the first thing his father had given him.†   (source)
  • I detest the part where Lot offered his own virgin daughters to the rabble of sinners, to do with as they might, just so they'd forget about God's angels that were visiting and leave them be.†   (source)
  • We all detest them, partly for their lack of judgment, mostly because: of their ignorance and toe-curling opportunism.†   (source)
  • 'And you don't know anything, and that is why you detest my questions.†   (source)
  • Taken prisoner during the first federalist adventure, he managed to escape to Curacao disguised in the garment he detested most in this world: a cassock.†   (source)
  • In spite of his respect for Astrid Lindgren—whose books he loved—he detested the nickname.†   (source)
  • His tone made it clear that he detested Grover.†   (source)
  • Our cook found them in the market and I wanted to serve them to you, although, frankly, I detest fungi.†   (source)
  • He valued her as much as he detested Esteban Trueba.†   (source)
  • As rock-ribbed a Republican as ever was allowed to take a breath in West Virginia, my father detested the Russian Communists, although, it should be said, not quite as much as certain American politicians.†   (source)
  • I detested the accusing sound of meow.†   (source)
  • My father, appreciating his employer's position, volunteered immediately to take the General, and thus was obliged to suffer intimate proximity for four days with the man he detested.†   (source)
  • She detests me.†   (source)
  • I detest most intensely the set-up that surrounds me here.†   (source)
  • I detest that man and it rankles that he got so much of you and I got so little.†   (source)
  • Now El-ahrairah had known beforehand that while elil detest all rabbits, they would dislike most the one who looked the biggest fool.†   (source)
  • You have to understand that deep down, there'd always been an arrogance about my father that I'd grown to detest, and I figured he was coming down because of that.†   (source)
  • She detested the trams constantly packed with people pushing into one another's hate-filled embraces, stepping on one another's feet, tearing off one another's coat buttons, and shouting insults.†   (source)
  • I detested and feared the man who slept on the other side of the bed.†   (source)
  • The impudent child was detested by God and a shame to its parents and could bring destruction to its house and line.†   (source)
  • With the victory at Trenton came the realization that Americans had bested the enemy, bested the fearsome Hessians, the King's detested hirelings, outsmarted them and outfought them, and so might well again.†   (source)
  • He detested the very sight of his son-in-law, who was his aide and therefore in constant attendance upon him.†   (source)
  • They disliked Bilbo and detested Frodo, but so magnificent was the invitation card, written in golden ink, that they had felt it was impossible to refuse.†   (source)
  • My mind wavered in that gray hazy area I detested.†   (source)
  • In my line of work, I'd seen too much injustice in the world to buy into the belief that a merciful, all-powerful deity would continue to allow such atrocities to exist; and I downright detested the party line that there was some divine grand plan for humanity's bumbling existence.†   (source)
  • I detest the sound of it as much as its matter.†   (source)
  • The warriors detested the labor, but it kept them busy and, moreover, it might save their lives.†   (source)
  • "A good woman should not detest her husband's disadvantage," I sang, remembering "The Tale of Wife Wang."†   (source)
  • I DETEST AND LOATHE IT!†   (source)
  • History of Fashion SENIOR THESIS BY ELIZABETH NICHOLS Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.†   (source)
  • And it sucks to need something from someone who so clearly detests you, but I'm not proud enough to say no. I nod, opening and closing my mouth quickly because I really want to say something, even if I don't know what it is I want to say.†   (source)
  • I have come to detest the Europeans for their treatment of my dear Sukeena.†   (source)
  • He's a man of many faces, many sides, some loved by those who have reasons to love him, others detested by those who consider him the essence of evil-and depending on the view, all have their reasons for being correct.†   (source)
  • Besides, wouldn't a wife come along on camping trips even if she detested them?†   (source)
  • Anything that hinders his bride's love, he detests.†   (source)
  • She can't hurt him, Izzy," said Alec in the reasonable voice Isabelle detested.†   (source)
  • She detested the rite human beings insisted on giving death.†   (source)
  • However, I detest having my property roughed over by the crew.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, there's American populism and a desire not to be stuffy, not to be too correct—they detest too much correctness.†   (source)
  • They would not be out in force, because mounted police detested the morning.†   (source)
  • Some deviational tribes detest the appearance of normality.†   (source)
  • I mean he was the only person that was there that I know really detests me.†   (source)
  • They never had children, and Merrick spent most of her time alone in the Sarasota place so as to avoid her mother-in-law, whom she detested.†   (source)
  • They detest deep thoughts as much as I do.†   (source)
  • Another planter's son, a sergeant in the 16th Mississippi with two brothers in the same regiment, also detested the drudgery of an enlisted man's lot.†   (source)
  • I remembered why I detested being around this vampire who was at least thirty years older than me, though she had been turned at the tender age of seventeen.†   (source)
  • Natalie scrutinized her face one last time in the mirror, as if committing her own features to memory—the nose she detested, the mouth she thought too large for her face, the dark alluring eyes.†   (source)
  • After all I've done for him you'd think Charley would have come to my aid, but he dislikes neurotics and he detests drunks.†   (source)
  • At the tribal feasts held for the Bishop, it was she who always slipped him a little dish of peas from her garden because he detested mashed turnips, and when he had first come to the village years before, cowering in a canoe under a tarpaulin in a heavy rain, it had been she who held a cup of coffee to his lips because his hands were so cold he could not hold it "And how did you like our river?"†   (source)
  • It is the story of the persecuted, the defrauded, the feared and detested.†   (source)
  • Without being willing quite fully to admit it, I had begun to detest my charade of a job.†   (source)
  • Not that he was a wicked man; but he belonged to that detested slave-hunting tribe, like the rest of the army, like his colonel.†   (source)
  • We have many objections to the Overlords-but above all we detest their secretiveness.†   (source)
  • He'd spent a lifetime smiling politely in the general direction of people he detested, including, some of the time, his son; and though he loved his wife he was not always strictly faithful.†   (source)
  • I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.   (source)
  • I'm sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber!†   (source)
  • I detest Isabella and can't abide Alexander.†   (source)
  • I detest people who pride themselves on being kind.†   (source)
  • If anything, they detested her more now.†   (source)
  • As much as Serena detested her former in-laws, she reveled in her connection to them.†   (source)
  • Right now it seems that she detests you in particular.†   (source)
  • And the simple fact is, you couldn't fit all the people who detested her into this apartment.†   (source)
  • Boyle rode him over rather than drive the horse in the trailer Alastar detested.†   (source)
  • And now he was called upon to be the man he detested.†   (source)
  • I detested the job, and I felt as worthless and degraded as I had when I lived with Mother.†   (source)
  • "Anyone would detest him for that," Lee said dryly.†   (source)
  • I detested myself for what I considered the abomination of feeling nothing.†   (source)
  • But these books were detested by Mr. Roosevelt's opposition.†   (source)
  • Like Jefferson, he detested the prospect of paying bribes.†   (source)
  • Blomkvist detested him too, and made no effort to hide it.†   (source)
  • He was an outspoken politician, popular with the left and detested by the right.†   (source)
  • If she detested it, why would she become a pro?†   (source)
  • Unfortunately, I detested Mammal the moment he walked in the door.†   (source)
  • I detest myself for succumbing to this power he lords over me†   (source)
  • At least, I told myself, I tackled a job I detested and was willing to give it my best shot.†   (source)
  • It was funny how he had really come to detest flying.†   (source)
  • I start as a lecturer, detested by the department because I don't see things as they do.†   (source)
  • I cannot tell you how I detested Harvey.†   (source)
  • Berger detested cigarette smoke and gave him a furious look.†   (source)
  • Then, because of Stephen, part of me detested her.†   (source)
  • As much as I detested myself for it, I heard pleading in my voice.†   (source)
  • Unlike the chaplain, Corporal Whitcomb detested the seclusion of the clearing in the woods.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, I believe he always liked me: but he detested Hamilton and my whole administration.†   (source)
  • If one adores sixteenth-century French poetry and the other detests it, there's no hope.†   (source)
  • Whitney, detesting Simpson in every pore, answered mildly.†   (source)
  • He detested it when I raised my voice, but I didn't care.†   (source)
  • Like most children, she detested leftovers...unless it was spaghetti.†   (source)
  • I detested and feared the man, but he was my only link to Mahtob.†   (source)
  • Lisbeth liked cocky devils, just as she detested pompous jerks.†   (source)
  • Although Moody liked the American way of life, he detested the shah for having Americanized Iran.†   (source)
  • He was not sickly or weak but he did not lift very well; he rode horses badly and detested them.†   (source)
  • My father tried to cultivate Malinowski, but Malinowski detested my father.†   (source)
  • It was not simply the connoisseur, the snob, that Kleppmann detested.†   (source)
  • I grew to detest the physical feel of the place.†   (source)
  • Sophie knew her mother detested the ring but wore it out of her constant deference to Papa.†   (source)
  • I have always detested this quality in women, this crude use of sex—so dishonest, so transparent.†   (source)
  • And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?†   (source)
  • That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests.†   (source)
  • It's obvious that she detests being a maid-of-all-work; he wonders if there is anything else she might prefer.†   (source)
  • Harry was sure of it: They seemed to be coming more quickly now, taking those dragging, rattling breaths he detested, tasting despair in the air, closing in — He raised his wand: He could not, would not suffer the Dementor's Kiss, whatever happened afterward.†   (source)
  • And later still, our town fell under Massachusetts authority—which may, to this day, explain why residents of Gravesend detest people from Massachusetts.†   (source)
  • I detest American television," Moushumi eventually declares to everyone's delight, then wanders into the hallway to continue her reading.†   (source)
  • I walked barefoot to the edge of the steps and stood listening, working my toes into the plush wall-to-wall carpet Amy detested on principle, as I tried to decide whether I was ready to join my wife.†   (source)
  • It made such an impression on him that from then on he detested military practices and war, not because of the executions but because of the horrifying custom of burying the victims alive.†   (source)
  • She made no secret of detesting it.†   (source)
  • No one knew a man better than Petra Cotes knew her lover and she knew that the trunks would remain where they had been sent because if Aureliano Segundo detested anything it was complicating his life with modifications and changes.†   (source)
  • She detested TV with such passion and wit that watching television and commenting on it—sometimes, commenting directly to it—became her job.†   (source)
  • Vanger paused and then said in a tone of mounting urgency, "Mikael, you can ask questions later, but I want you to take me at my word when I say that I detest most of the members of my family.†   (source)
  • She detested the rosary at dusk, the affected table etiquette, the constant criticism of the way she held her silverware, the way she walked in mystical strides like a woman of the streets, the way she dressed as if she were in the circus, and even the rustic way she treated her husband and nursed her child without covering her breast with her mantilla.†   (source)
  • She detested this helplessness.†   (source)
  • There was too much informality, too little discipline, and a "detest-able" use of profanity that should never be tolerated.†   (source)
  • When he was finished with him, the renowned children's psychiatrist would be one of the most detested men in Sweden.†   (source)
  • I detest your Central Intelligence Agency and your State Department's so-grandly named Consular Operations.†   (source)
  • If you cringe when someone says between you and I; bristle at the word hopefully; detest prioritize; if you cherish the distinction between disinterested and uninterested and deplore their being treated as synonyms; if you wonder what's happened to education when you hear criteria used as a singular—then you are probably part of the large body of Americans who feel our language is in a state of serious decline.†   (source)
  • "Why does he detest you?" he asked.†   (source)
  • Despite his immense fortune and his peaceful, introspective character, Esteban Trueba detested him because he was circumcised and had a Sephardic nose and kinky hair.†   (source)
  • He detests me because I'm in this crazy Religion seminar he conducts, and I can never bring myself to smile back at him when he's being charming and Oxfordish.†   (source)
  • I detest farewells of any sort.†   (source)
  • Alessandro would have to weave through German, Austrian, and Italian armies, border guards, militia, police, and districts where strangers were both detested and unknown.†   (source)
  • Detests you, eh?†   (source)
  • But his part as a "rewarder and encourager" of Callender, "a libeler whom you could not but detest and despise," she could not and would not forget.†   (source)
  • As the months passed, I felt my job was completely worthless, and I began to detest myself as a father and a husband.†   (source)
  • Nately had been brought up to detest people like Aarfy, whom his mother characterized as climbers, and people like Milo, whom his father characterized as pushers, but he had never learned how, since he had never been permitted near them.†   (source)
  • I detest disloyal people.†   (source)
  • She either enjoyed or detested the act.†   (source)
  • I have always detested games.†   (source)
  • Even though the person in front of me was my relative, an elder whom I respected, I truly detested her vindictiveness.†   (source)
  • They had adopted quite a neutral tone during the conversation, but Armansky knew that Salander was in fact detested by all three of them, as well as by the rest of the employees at Milton Security.†   (source)
  • Instead there was the crawlway, and since the mess on the mission over Avignon he had learned to detest every mammoth inch of it, for it slung him seconds and seconds away from his parachute, which was too bulky to be taken up front with him, and seconds and seconds more after that away from the escape hatch on the floor between the rear of the elevated flight deck and the feet of the faceless top turret gunner mounted high above.†   (source)
  • You know I detest advice.†   (source)
  • I've always detested it.†   (source)
  • Adams detested the idea of friends trying to use him, but he could readily have done something for the Warrens, and with perfect propriety.†   (source)
  • But he had never understood her love for her husband, had never been able to grasp why she considered Greger Beckman such an enchanting person: warm, exciting, generous, and above all without many of the traits that she so detested in most men.†   (source)
  • Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.†   (source)
  • It was a word I detested and feared.†   (source)
  • And detested it.†   (source)
  • In August, Boston mobs, "like devils let loose," stoned the residence of Andrew Oliver, secretary of the province, who had been appointed distributor of the stamps, then attacked and destroyed the house of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, wrongly suspecting him of having sponsored the detested tax.†   (source)
  • Their alternative — there was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice — was to starve.†   (source)
  • Although Moody detested Detroit, he found much less bigotry in the metropolitan environment, and he determined that his professional future lay there, in one capacity or another.†   (source)
  • He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope.†   (source)
  • I detested this task, but this night I found myself in a particularly foul temper, knowing that my living room would soon be covered with spilled tea and tracks of sugar.†   (source)
  • He breezed along beautifully, even emulating certain characteristic mispronunciations of General Dreedle's, and he was not the least bit intimidated by General Peckem's new colonel until he suddenly recalled that General Peckem detested General Dreedle.†   (source)
  • I detested the imported ornamental trees, the trees of my childhood, so unnatural here, with the red dust of the streets that turned to mud in rain, the overcast sky that meant only more heat, the clear sky that meant a sun that hurt, the rain that seldom cooled and made for a general clamminess, the brown river with the lilac-coloured flowers on rubbery green vines that floated on and on, night and day.†   (source)
  • I began to detest the omnipresent pink and doubted gravely that it would "wear" on me, as Yetta had said.†   (source)
  • He detested New York only for what he called its "barbarity," its lack of courtesy, its total bankruptcy in the estimable domain of public manners.†   (source)
  • I had never seen that key worn by anyone much over my own age, especially beyond the bounds of a campus, and it added a further touch of ludicrousness to a person I already had detested on sight.†   (source)
  • She recalled it all so clearly—emerging from the flatulent warmth of the detested subway and onto the sunny campus with its sprawling rectangles of ripe green grass, its crowd of summerschool students, the trees and flowered walks.†   (source)
  • She detested New York subway trains for their grime and their noise, but even more for the claustrophobic nearness of so many human bodies, the rushhour jam and jostle of flesh which seemed to neutralize, if not to cancel out, the privacy she had sought for so long.†   (source)
  • Sophie, who is shy enough anyway, detests being forced to perform for Durrfeld, but, smiling a twisted embarrassed smile, complies, speaking at her father's command in Swabian, then in the indolent cadences of Bavaria, now in the tones of a native of Dresden, of Frankfurt, quickly followed by the Low German sound of a Saxon from Hannover and at last—aware that the desperation shows in her own eyes—blurting out an imitation of some quaint denizen of the Schwarzwald.†   (source)
  • James is the sort of man I most detest, one says.†   (source)
  • She detested the dentist, who had several times unsuccessfully tried to fit her with false teeth.†   (source)
  • He would try to be kind to people he detested.†   (source)
  • If it's any comfort to you, I absolutely detest myself.†   (source)
  • Trolls simply detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked).†   (source)
  • But, oddly enough, though so much alike, they detest each other.†   (source)
  • She detested women; she got on very well with Andrew Lang.†   (source)
  • He hopped a car down to Halsted Street because he detested walking.†   (source)
  • This kind of music, much as I detested it, had always had a secret charm for me.†   (source)
  • "How you must detest dining in this bear garden," she said, making use, as she did when she was distracted, of her social manner.†   (source)
  • A man of the Middle Ages would detest the whole mode of our present-day life as something far more than horrible, far more than barbarous.†   (source)
  • While in town, he spent most of his time gambling in the rooms above the Girl of the Period Saloon, or in Belle Watling's bar hobnobbing with the wealthier of the Yankees and Carpetbaggers in money-making schemes which made the townspeople detest him even more than his cronies.†   (source)
  • It bears a sickening resemblance to the description one human writer made of Heaven; "the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence" Music and silence—how I detest them both!†   (source)
  • The thing he'd most detest is being cut off from others; he'd rather be one of a beleaguered crowd than a prisoner alone.†   (source)
  • But the image would have been there if I had never fallen in love with her, or had never seen her again, or had grown to detest her.†   (source)
  • They feared and detested the very thought of living side by side with large numbers of Negroes in their own states, to say nothing of competing with their labor.†   (source)
  • If life, he thinks, could wear that permanence, if life could have that order—for above all he desires order, and detests my Byronic untidiness; and so draws his curtain; and bolts his door.†   (source)
  • It was not that Morgause courted invisibility—indeed, she would have detested it, because she was beautiful.†   (source)
  • We detest with horror the duplicity and villainy of the murderous hyenas of Bukharinite wreckers and such dregs of humanity as Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov and their henchmen.†   (source)
  • Good, I detest Flamands.†   (source)
  • She was thankful, I remember she told us, that she had no daughters; and it was plain she detested having us two rather gawky girls to stay.†   (source)
  • "I've always detested hunting," she said, "because it seems to produce a particularly gross kind of caddishness in the nicest people.†   (source)
  • A brush, the one dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos—that one should not play with, knowingly even: she detested it.†   (source)
  • There is one type for which his desire is such as to be naturally amenable to the Enemy—readily mixed with charity, readily obedient to marriage, coloured all through with that golden light of reverence and naturalness which we detest; there is another type which he desires brutally, and desires to desire brutally, a type best used to draw him away from marriage altogether but which, even within marriage, he would tend to treat as a slave, an idol, or an accomplice.†   (source)
  • Once at Salisbury, when the Fishers were neighbours, Vanessa, detesting them, and in particular Aunt Mary, who had viciously interfered, writing surreptitious letters addressed to Cope's studio, criticising her behaviour towards George and Jack—when Vanessa refused to visit them, and cut them in the street, Thoby pronounced one of his rare impressive judgements.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)