All 33 Uses of
reproach
in
David Copperfield
- But I was no sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that way with a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my comforter and friend.†
Chpt 1-3
- For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly — or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful — if I showed the emotion which distressed me.†
Chpt 7-9
- Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes.†
Chpt 19-21
- 'You come upon me,' he said, almost angrily, 'like a reproachful ghost!'†
Chpt 22-24
- She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my self-reproach and shame, and — in short, made a fool of myself.†
Chpt 25-27
- If I rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last — which was not by any means to be relied upon — she would appear with a reproachful aspect, sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or anything else, to get rid of her.†
Chpt 28-30
- I loved her none the less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and I would have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make it.†
Chpt 28-30
- Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach.†
Chpt 31-33
- My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!†
Chpt 31-33
- 'If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,' pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, 'how much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had?†
Chpt 31-33
- If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so.†
Chpt 31-33
- — or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her.†
Chpt 31-33
- 'I don't mention it reproachfully, however, but with a motive.†
Chpt 34-36
- I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name.†
Chpt 37-39
- I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this.†
Chpt 37-39
- Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe.†
Chpt 40-42
- Dora gave me a reproachful look — the prettiest look!†
Chpt 40-42
- A half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without my help.†
Chpt 40-42
- It is she who should reproach; not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty.†
Chpt 40-42
- I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.'†
Chpt 43-45
- If I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar.†
Chpt 43-45
- I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were eager to load her with reproaches.†
Chpt 46-48
- Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on: 'At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all concerned, he was' — here an…†
Chpt 46-48
- The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal.†
Chpt 46-48
- I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly.†
Chpt 49-51
- 'It is my fate,' said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; 'it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me.†
Chpt 49-51
- Here,' she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, 'is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach.†
Chpt 49-51
- 'No one can't reproach my darling in Australia.†
Chpt 49-51
- Every word seems a reproach!'†
Chpt 52-54
- 'Oh, my dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word to you, in earnest — it was all the merit I had, except being pretty — or you thought me so.†
Chpt 52-54
- But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I was left so sad and lonely in the world.†
Chpt 58-60
- There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me.
Chpt 58-60 *reproach = criticism
- With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart.†
Chpt 61-62
Definition:
-
(reproach) a criticism; or to express criticism or disappointment -- especially where a relationship makes the disapproval result in disappointment or shameeditor's notes: The expression "beyond reproach" is often used to indicate that one must not only be careful to do everything right, but must be careful not to do anything that might make people suspect they did something wrong. For example, politicians often need to behave in a manner that is beyond reproach.
"Beyond reproach" can also suggest that something is perfect. More rarely, it can also be used to suggest that someone is too powerful or too well-connected to criticize.