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INSOLENT
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unrestrained by convention or propriety
Example:
the modern world with its quick material successes and insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress
Synonyms:
audacious; bald-faced; barefaced; bodacious; brassy; brazen; brazen-faced; insolent
Classified under:
Similar:
unashamed (used of persons or their behavior; feeling no shame)
Derivation:
insolence (the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Marked by casual disrespect
Example:
the student was kept in for impudent behavior
Synonyms:
flip; impudent; insolent; snotty-nosed
Classified under:
Similar:
disrespectful (exhibiting lack of respect; rude and discourteous)
Derivation:
insolence (an offensive disrespectful impudent act)
insolence (the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties)
Context examples:
The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very attention.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The memory of that unfortunate king and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Goring, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they might be supposed to have inhabited.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
'Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he give 'isself. He didn't git angry, as I 'oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. 'Oh no, they wouldn't like me,' 'e says.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and conditioning, they loud and insolent.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Brissenden paused and ran an insolent eye over Martin's objective poverty, passing from the well-worn tie and the saw- edged collar to the shiny sleeves of the coat and on to the slight fray of one cuff, winding up and dwelling upon Martin's sunken cheeks.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal Hudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulders and turned him out of the room.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Oh, barbarously insolent!
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
