Sentence Examples:
I believe there's a deal of opposition; there are men who scoff at the idea of traces of radium having been discovered here.
Alexander heard it in silence, sternly checking some scoff on which one of his younger courtiers ventured when it was finished.
He scoffs at the clerical classes and the religious orders, laughs at the priestly raiment which covered the passions of humanity.
She is no longer an example to the provinces; they do not imitate her fashions, and are ready to scoff at her pretensions.
He scoffs like Lucian, and by-and-by he will say, Behold, how are these among the saints whose life we counted for folly.
Besides, there is a very curious sense of satisfaction in getting a fair chance to sneer at ourselves and scoff at our own pretensions.
Her opportunities fell far short of her expectations, but her words of fire ignited the hearts of many who came to scoff.
He seemed inclined to doubt and scoff, but a stronger instinct compelled him to give credence to the story he had just heard.
You'd only scoff and jeer as you did before, although on this occasion it is your own life that has been saved, not mine.
The scoffs, the jeers, the laughter, the outcries that this was a ridiculous, fantastic undertaking, were more than I can speak of.
It is a love which is most easily excited in the best and kindliest natures, and which few are callous enough to scoff at.
Neither can we scoff at the illiteracy of men who were carrying on diplomatic correspondence in written despatches before Genesis itself was compiled.
Congratulations were showered upon the inventor, who received them as calmly as he had previously borne the scoffs of many of these same men.
These they scoff at, hate, flee as from a pestilence, yet they alone preserve for these things a secret admiration and perfect confidence!
Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values.
They make larger and larger demands; they become insolent and scoff at King Tobias who has now sunk to be plain Tobias to them.
It was the family of the deposed monarch, which he had sent off thus early to save them from possible scoffs and insults.
He is so grave, serious, and sedate at some simple Doctrines and Arguments, that his Readers must of necessity laugh, if not scoff at him.
The recent misfortune of one of his colleagues whose trust had been abused by forgers served him as a pretext to scoff at the learned.
You must penetrate the ponderous vocabulary, the professional cant to the insight beneath, or you scoff at the mountain ranges of words and phrases.
Will our national pride be flattered because our eloquence is sneered at, our law derided, our political knowledge a scoff, and our very accent a joke?
This, it is true, has frequently been made the subject of profane banter by those whose skepticism leads them to scoff at all prodigies.
The scoffs subsided, exclamations of wonder took their place; then, as the triumph of the experiment became evident, a cheer arose from the shore.
The crowd was unbelieving and cynical, inclined to scoff at the idea that mere smoke would carry so huge a construction up into the sky.
For I have not mentioned this in order to scoff, let no one think so, but simply to point out the dissimilarity of the writings.
I thrashed him again and again, but he has got beyond that now, you see; he is nearly eighteen, and openly scoffs at my authority.
Gordon would scoff at the idea and declare it an accidental meeting, but what does he know of the forces that may direct our footsteps?
As an ardent partisan of local self-government he habitually scoffs at the centralized bureaucracy, which he proclaims to be the great bane of his unhappy country.
His leg was healing with disgusting rashness, but his heart was going into an illness that was to scoff at the cures of man.
Scientific musicians were at first prone to scoff at the string quartet as too slight in texture to afford a vehicle for the display of genius.
Why does it come to us, sweetened with the language of panegyric, from those who love us not, and who habitually scoff at and deride us?
I was inclined to scoff at this, at first, as ostentatious; but after all, as the things were to be marked, how could it be done better?
From the scoffs and reproaches of these men of honor, the poor young fellow retired to his hammock in an agony of confusion and shame.
He finds that it annihilates space, robs him of locomotion, almost scoffs at the existence of the earth, and he is simply frightened and cowed.
It remains no longer, but to mock my sense and scoff at my sorrow, to rend my bosom with a woe, complicated, matchless and inexpressible.
He was essentially an intellectual hero; for he dared to believe, on grounds sufficing to reason, that which the world disbelieves, and scoffs, and scorns.
How this cheered me, for I had tried to preach to them on the train, and I feared the scoffs or reproof of the railroad officials.
We had, at any rate, the grace, not, in our present security, to scoff at the thanks in which we had so cordially although quietly participated.
And though some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is either quenched by a sudden change, or is restrained through fear or shame.
Then she surveyed the assembly furtively, as though prepared for insult or worse, and quietly repeated her strange story amid general scoffs and impatience.
To twist the line of Goldsmith, those who came to pray would be at the mercy of those who came to scoff; and such mercy is merciless.
I wish, she says, that mankind might sit at a sumptuous table, but I shall not scoff at the wooden spoon that feeds its hunger.
And his light scoffs against the power of love are but just sufficient to render more piquant the conquest of this "heretic in despite of beauty."
And when there is a rent in that veil, pride looks on love and scoffs bitterly, and love looks on pride and weeps tears of fire.
What it meant for this proud woman, who had borne the scoffs and jeers of Rome, to see its highest dignitaries prostrate at her feet!
He and his brother embarked, amidst the scoffs and shouts of a miscreant rabble, who took a brutal joy in heaping insult on his venerable head.
The complaint is made that scientific men scoff at spiritualism and yet refuse to investigate it; in the last two examples we see why this is inevitable.
Quite heedless of these scoffs and taunts, they trudged on through the white sand that soon would be so red, until they came opposite to the throne.
This is the material which the imagination seizes hold of, and out of which it spins those fantastic, cobweb shapes that practical persons scoff at as superstitions.
Kettle was immensely sensitive about his accomplishment, and had writhed under brutal scoffs and polished ridicule at his poetry more times than he cared to count.
He greatly dreaded pamphlets, satires, epigrams, and the opinion of posterity and yet his conduct was that of a man who scoffs at the world's judgment.
The stars, according to the astrology that the Western mind scoffs at, are supposed to exert a direct influence on the destinies and characters of men.
The classes who mingled in the worldly life of the capital would scoff; and the country gentry who took their cue from them would follow suit.
An individual here and there may scoff at the credulity of others, and profess unbelief in human virtue; but no society has ever yet wanted faith in man.
"However," John sternly resolved, "the next time that James tries to scoff at married life I shall tell him pretty plainly what I think of his affectation."
The sorcerer regarded not their scoffs, hooting, or anything they could say, but continued to cry shrilly, "Who will exchange old lamps for new ones?"
He is smoking a cigar, and talking over his shoulder, at intervals, in brief sentences that have a harsh, brazen ring, and are charged with scoff and menace.
His eyes swept hungrily over the golden bronze hair; then he turned away with the short, hard laugh of the man who scoffs at his own despair.
To what purpose is all this prelude of yours, to introduce to me somebody, who, by her likeness to my daughter, may expose me to your scoff and raillery?
She was taught to scorn faith, to deride inspiration, to scoff at worship, to acknowledge no law but her own will, no higher rule of life than "Noblesse oblige."
There, despite the scoffs of formally trained military engineers, he constructed a gun emplacement in full sight of rebel fortifications and proceeded to silence the Confederate guns.
And I am a lover of Hounds; I have followed many a pack of dogs many a mile, and heard many merry Huntsmen make sport and scoff at Anglers.
A certain class of astronomers might take a lesson from an intelligent public in ceasing to scoff and ridicule what they are unable to see themselves in the Martian markings.
And now, when Massachusetts is engaged in a greater cause than that of our fathers, how serenely can she turn from the scoff and jeer of heartless men!
Be this so or not our Downs are to us delectable mountains, and let the reader who scoffs at the noun remember that size is no criterion of either beauty or sublimity.
On one side are the puritans who frown at a preacher in a velvet jacket; on the other side the pagans who scoff at an artist who cares for morals.
We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves.
We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humble follower of the great investigator; but as a matter of fact we should have been just as dull ourselves.
If you could see as I do now, how Phil is hiding his real feelings, you'd realize that there's one man, at least, capable of the deathless devotion you scoff at.
He was inclined to scoff in his heart at his wife's philanthropic hobbies, but he indulged her in them as he did in all her efforts to attain fashionable standing.
Although its doctrines have become a scoff (except among the valiant few), its method still survives, still prompts to renewed research, and still misleads some men of science.
Every one, young and old, feels compassion for their misfortune; to laugh or scoff at them would be considered as a crime, much more so to insult or molest them.
To be able to bear such scoffs and taunts was the next lesson he had to learn, and it was a great pity that he had not learned it sooner.
It is also true that many will not believe him in these days, for out of their puny volition they will analyze, and out of their discontent they will scoff.
Could she be the same I had seen so submissive under all the insolence of her brutal husband, bearing his scoffs and his sarcasms without a word of reply?
This incident provoked some scoffs from the witless, and some grave comments from those who stood more in awe of the corpse of the saint than of the sinner.
The sternest censor of the follies and vices of mankind mingles mercy with his judgment, and considers with thoughtful compassion the infirmities at which the cynic scoffs.
For the future we shall not treat lightly the armies of the early Caliphs, nor scoff with Gibbon at the feebleness of the troops who were routed by them.
He was supported by the alms of the charitable and did no work, but lived an idle life, endured no hardships, and escaped not the scoffs of the satirical.
Those who lived in the capital had been glib of tongue and ready to scoff from time immemorial: all were capable of great exertions; industrious, persistent, and of enduring strength.
The sea music is here turned into something unearthly, frightful; these damned souls have no hope of being saved, and in their misery they scoff and mock and laugh hideously.
Men began to scoff and jeer at his name over their cups in hall, or as they rode with hawk on fist to the hunting, or as they tilted in the lists.
His lordly head, with its great spread of antlers, was held high, so that some of those who had come to scoff and laugh at him felt a sudden awe.
I have heard an impatient innovator scoff at the English law on the subject of mustard, and demand why, in the nature of things, mustard should not be eaten with mutton.
Still, the scoff could be plausibly pointed at the "young enthusiasts who crowded the Via Media, and who never presumed to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all."
Many who have come to scoff have remained to pray, and I think that my labors are being greatly blessed, and all attacks on me so far have been overruled for good.
No one dared to scoff, although no one could understand what the doctor meant to do; but working energetically under his directions, they succeeded in framing a sufficiently practicable litter.
An Indian on a horse presently appeared cautiously from cover, and Buddy, trembling with excitement, shot wild; but not so wild that the Indian could afford to scoff and ride closer.
Heine, German by birth, scoffs at Hugo, claiming that his greatest gift was a lack of good taste, a condition so rare in Frenchmen that his compatriots mistook it for genius.
Many scoffs have been directed against this story, as if it were unworthy of credence that eating a dish of lentils should have shaped the life of a man and of his descendants.
There are persons who scoff at them and many shrug their shoulders; but this must not discourage our women, because neither scoffing nor shrugging the shoulders are very weighty arguments.
When you begin to esteem and be proud of your children your life is naturally happier than when you scoff and jeer at them, and treat them as creatures of inferior mold to yourself.
The world's people often visit us, some, I am sorry to say, to scoff and to jest; but you have an honest, comely countenance, and I trust are led by better motives.
He sat with an unmoved countenance, hardly hearing in his pride the scoffs of the mob; calm and steady when the whole city was frenzied with anxiety because of him.
Upon its topmost branch, as I chanced to lift my eyes, I beheld to my terror the woman whom I had sent into eternity, looking down upon me with scoffs and grimaces!
Indeed, the wicked have been known to scoff at them freely as mere accidental lumps of broken flint, and to deride the notion of their being due in any way to deliberate human handicraft.
Amid the scoffs of the present and the sneers that stab like knives, he builds for the future; he cuts the trail that progressive humanity may hereafter broaden into a highroad.
An eastern despot would take off the heads of those who treated him in such a style; and a republican politician would scoff at the idea of giving office to such lukewarm followers.
After one experience every fellow might be expected to know better, and scoff at the idea of a true scout going hungry as long as camp stores abounded, and a fire could be kindled.
When he is near, earthly griefs seem to have lost their power to pain; his soft whisper drowns with its music the scoff of the persecutor, the yell of the furious mob.