Besides Princess Bielokonski, only one other lady was expected, the wife of a high dignitary.
He saw, for instance, that one important dignitary, old enough to be his grandfather, broke off his own conversation in order to listen to HIM--a young and inexperienced man; and not only listened, but seemed to attach value to his opinion, and was kind and amiable, and yet they were strangers and had never seen each other before.
There were also present a very distinguished dignitary and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kuragins'.
The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of "Collector of Alms" went round to all the brothers.
Came then, from the back of the room a procession headed by the high dignitary whose office it was to make these two man and wife, and directly behind him a richly-clad youth bearing a silken pillow on which lay the golden handcuffs connected by a short length of chain-of-gold with which the ceremony would be concluded when the dignitary clasped a handcuff about the wrist of each symbolizing their indissoluble union in the holy bonds of wedlock.
The dignitary lifted the golden handcuffs from the pillow upon which they reposed.
Death is a
dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him.
I said that if that potentate must go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must --but that to my thinking, when the United States considered it necessary to send a
dignitary of that tonnage across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and safer, to take him apart and cart him over in sections in several ships.
In defiance of conventual rules, and the edicts of popes and councils, the sleeves of this
dignitary were lined and turned up with rich furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole dress proper to his order as much refined upon and ornamented, as that of a quaker beauty of the present day, who, while she retains the garb and costume of her sect continues to give to its simplicity, by the choice of materials and the mode of disposing them, a certain air of coquettish attraction, savouring but too much of the vanities of the world.
Now and then a camel or an elephant would pass bearing some officer or
dignitary to safety.
This
dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith on the subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping to the Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession.
There were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain unpopular
dignitary.
dignitary - an important or influential (and often overbearing) person