6 uses
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Definition
doubtful (that something is true or worthwhile)
or more rarely:
generally tending to doubt what others believe
or more rarely:
generally tending to doubt what others believe
- Mr. Horrock, at a question from Fred about his horse's fetlock, turned sideways in his saddle, and watched the horse's action for the space of three minutes, then turned forward, twitched his own bridle, and remained silent with a profile neither more nor less sceptical than it had been.Book 3 — Waiting for Death (10% in)
- _" cried Fred, in a tone of profound brotherly scepticism.Book 2 — Old and Young (14% in)
- And Fred, notwithstanding his general scepticism about Rosy, listened to her music with perfect allegiance, wishing he could do the same thing on his flute.Book 2 — Old and Young (38% in)
- ...the suspicion of bending downwards), and nature had given him a face which by dint of Mongolian eyes, and a nose, mouth, and chin seeming to follow his hat-brim in a moderate inclination upwards, gave the effect of a subdued unchangeable sceptical smile, of all expressions the most tyrannous over a susceptible mind, and, when accompanied by adequate silence, likely to create the reputation of an invincible understanding, an infinite fund of humor—too dry to flow, and probably in a...Book 3 — Waiting for Death (10% in)
- But scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill: something we must believe in and do, and whatever that something may be called, it is virtually our own judgment, even when it seems like the most slavish reliance on another.Book 3 — Waiting for Death (14% in)
- It was only the common trick of desire—which avails itself of any irrelevant scepticism, finding larger room for itself in all uncertainty about effects, in every obscurity that looks like the absence of law.Book 7 — Two Temptations (71% in)
There are no more uses of "skeptical" in Middlemarch.
Typical Usage
(best examples)