All 12 Uses of
infamy
in
The Scarlet Letter
- On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.
p. 37.7infamy = fame for something bad
- Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church.
p. 46.4infamy = public knowledge of having done something bad
- "Hester," said he, "I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee."
p. 52.5infamy = fame for something bad
- He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart.
p. 53.6 *infamy = something bad
- Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger.
p. 55.2infamy = well-known for something bad
- And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.
p. 55.9infamy = fame for something bad
- Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels.†
p. 60.6
- Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place.
p. 80.2infamy = fame for something bad
- Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour.
p. 108.1
- None; unless it avail him somewhat that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating.†
p. 136.1
- Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?
p. 168.2infamy = fame for something bad
- But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!
p. 169.5
Definition:
famous for something that is bad; or an extremely bad event