Desisted

Usage examples of refrained.

I should not be fulfilling my duty to a young person who is under my charge if I refrained from pointing out to you that your conduct, since you have been under our roof, has been reprehensible and disgraceful.

I have refrained from speaking to you because, as I say, you are under my roof and I did not wish to hurt your feelings--though I am sure you have had very little regard for ours.

Even Simpson and his coterie, for once, refrained from their usual recriminations and protests.

The notables refrained from public sarcasm, since university students had a tendency to become riotous when mocked.

We have not refrained from diplomatic action in matters not strictly American, but it has always been understood that such action would not be backed by force.

In fact, Liberia, the negro republic founded on the west coast of Africa by the Colonization Society, was in all essentials an American protectorate, though the United States carefully refrained in its communications with other powers from doing more than expressing its good will for the little republic.

We refrained from signing the Declaration of Paris, therefore, not because it went too far, but because it did not go far enough.

He accepted the result philosophically and refrained from comments, content, apparently, to leave the part he had played in world affairs to the verdict of history.

Alex refrained from chucking the pager at the man, but it took great effort.

Evan refrained from commenting and accompanied Alex down the corridor.

Miss Allison, from what she knew of Clement Kane, thought it extremely unlikely that he would make the least attempt to dislodge his great-aunt, but she wisely refrained from saying this and instead went away to inform him of the tragedy.

This time, however, the kiss was full of the passion he refrained from expressing before Heinrich and Max.

She graciously has refrained from rubbing my nose in the fact that I was fighting on the losing side which cost me too many years of my life in a dank, rat-infested prison which would have made Newgate Prison seem a true Eden in comparison.

Then, he refrained from winking at her when she gave him a guileful looking smile.

He would have been appalled to learn that they refrained from doing so for fear of ingesting one of the poisons with which unclean humans were reputed to be saturated.