All 25 Uses of
condescending
in
Bleak House
- As he was half amused and half curious and all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she continued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our strange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling condescension, that she lived close by.†
Chpt 4-6
- "My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending to him from her lofty station as she presented him to us.†
Chpt 4-6
- A policeman has already walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall back.†
Chpt 10-12
- Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly.†
Chpt 13-15
- And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents.†
Chpt 13-15
- Now, if your pretty granddaughter —excuse me, miss—will condescend to take care of this pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time.†
Chpt 19-21
- In the last scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion.†
Chpt 19-21
- Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the condescension of its lovely presence.†
Chpt 22-24
- He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he called my condescension.†
Chpt 22-24
- And Sir Leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine arts with a glance of approbation.†
Chpt 28-30
- Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like the miscellaneous articles in a sale.†
Chpt 28-30
- Several before your ladyship condescended to favour me with an answer.†
Chpt 28-30
- The affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight.†
Chpt 37-39
- At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in with him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his brothers-in-law.†
Chpt 40-42
- Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," implying that then she must have appeared of very considerable moral dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master.†
Chpt 40-42
- He had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension;
Chpt 40-42 *condescension = the act of doing something considered beneath one's position or dignity
- The same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins entering on various public employments, principally receipt of salary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath and the terror of every other community.†
Chpt 40-42
- A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily.†
Chpt 46-48
- It is a street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone chargers of noble statues.†
Chpt 46-48
- "I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings— though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much more."†
Chpt 46-48
- In return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing it—showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner in dispensing the light of his highshouldered presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life.†
Chpt 49-51
- If I was not innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to myself under the condescension of the present visit.†
Chpt 52-54
- "You will not forget, officer," he adds with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please."†
Chpt 52-54
- The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself.†
Chpt 66-67
- Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each.†
Chpt 66-67
Definition:
-
(condescending) treating others as inferior; or doing something considered beneath one's position or dignity