Meanness
['mi:nnis]
Definition
(n.) The condition, or quality, of being mean; want of excellence; poorness; lowness; baseness; sordidness; stinginess.
(n.) A mean act; as, to be guilty of meanness.
Typed by Konrad
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Smallness, littleness, scantiness, slenderness, lowness, poverty, meagreness, poorness.[2]. Abjectness, vileness, baseness, contemptibleness, abasement, despicableness.[3]. Illiberality, ungenerousness, sordidness, penuriousness.
Edited by Joanne
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Penuriousness, littleness, selfishness, baseness, smallness, illiberality,ungenerousness, sordidness
ANT:Nobleness, unselfishness, liberality, generousness, large-heartedness
Editor: Nancy
Examples
- Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness of punishing her? Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- I had been hitherto, all my life, a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. Plato. The Republic.
- Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as a protest against their meanness. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- In the meanness of your nature you revile me with the meanness of my birth. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- A twelve months' voyage at sea would make of an ordinary man a very miracle of meanness. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- MY DEAR HARRIETTE, began young Berkeley, and then went on, with his usual, incorrigible duplicity and meanness. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- They would find out that the blood in his veins was as free from the taint of meanness as theirs. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed any meanness to you, she began. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- If any service is very much underpaid, it is very apt to suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of those who are employed in it. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love, cripples even natural affection; without esteem true love cannot exist. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face. Plato. The Republic.
- So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- I can't explain exactly, but I want to be above the little meannesses and follies and faults that spoil so many women. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
Editor: Thea