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IMPERIOUS
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy
Example:
a more swaggering mood than usual
Synonyms:
disdainful; haughty; imperious; lordly; overbearing; prideful; sniffy; supercilious; swaggering
Classified under:
Similar:
proud (feeling self-respect or pleasure in something by which you measure your self-worth; or being a reason for pride)
Derivation:
imperiousness (the trait of being imperious and overbearing)
Context examples:
It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his imperious employer.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much dreaded by me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever—there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The two men’s faces were not more than a few inches apart, and Sir Lothian’s bold eyes had to sink before the imperious scorn which gleamed coldly in those of my uncle.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
To find it was the task set him by an imperious and malignant universe, and he wandered through the endless corridors of his mind, opening all manner of lumber rooms and chambers stored with odds and ends of memories and knowledge as he vainly sought the answer.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Mr. Tudor's uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of us—that unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in ferment at the coming of a royal yellow-haired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a farewell scolding when he rebelled.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
