Old Contemptibles
Britishplural noun
Etymology
Origin of Old Contemptibles
so named from the Kaiser's alleged reference to them as a ``contemptible little army''
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
No one officially said where the B. E. F. was stationed, but everyone knew: on France's low-lying Belgian border from Lille to Hirson, right where the "Old Contemptibles" took their stand 25 years ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
To this day Britons who fought in France during 1914 proudly refer to themselves collectively, as "The Old Contemptibles."
From Time Magazine Archive
They were ill-trained and vitiated by appeasement when war came, not unlike the "Old Contemptibles" which the Kaiser scorned in 1914.
From Time Magazine Archive
A more serious error, and one which must delight the experts of psychological warfare, is the statement about the Old Contemptibles, "which the Kaiser scorned in 1914."
From Time Magazine Archive
Only a spirit which made possible the impossible supported them: only the glory of their traditions held the breaking line of Old Contemptibles to the end.
From No Man's Land by McNeile, H. C. (Herman Cyril)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
