Short shrift is the easiest in love and war.

He then made out a receipt, handed it to the astonished trooper, and, directing him where to go, carried out the same short shrift with the other three.

One wonders that their spirits are so high, for they would get short shrift and little mercy from German raiding parties behind our advance.

Gramercy, Friar, for this gift, And if thou come unto my shrift, I'll make thee call those fellows fools That on their foes bestow such tools.

And well you do your wrong repent: For this your highness' liberal gift I here absolve you without shrift.

Short shrift to make, good honest confessor, I love a fair nun, now in Dunmow Abbey: The abbess loves you, and you pleasure her; Now, if between you two this pretty lady Could be persuaded to affect a king, Your suit is granted, and on Dunmow Abbey I will bestow a hundred marks a year.

Out of ten Frenchmen in Syria, five believe that Lawrence is with Feisul and if they can catch him he will get short shrift.

France will hold no less firm a tone; whatever may be the dissent as to the right of search, the right of slave ships, be sure, will be admitted by none; a sea-police will soon be found to put an end to them; if need be, the punishment will be inflicted on their crews that is in store for a much less crime, that of piracy; these wretches will be hung with short shrift at the yard-arm, without form or figure of law.

penance, fasting, maceration, sackcloth and ashes, white sheet, shrift, flagellation, lustration^; purgation, purgatory.

Speak not to me of shrift and prayer; while the spark of life lasts, I must redress the wrongs of Constance.

Disguised sepoys and inhabitants taken with arms in their possession had short shrift, and were at once consigned to the gallows, a batch of ten one day suffering death opposite the Kotwali.

He 'd get short shrift; I don't think any Court would have a chance to try him.

Shrift is the abstract noun derived from it.

Let a submarine appearits shrift would be short indeed!

make a short shrift Here's a hair-shirted Palmer hard by; And here's Lawyer Earwig to draw up your will, And we'll witness it, Death-Moth and I. Lady Bird!

If I could convince our impecunious mobs of this, the world would be reformed before the end of the week; for the sluggards who are content to be wealthy without working and the dastards who are content to work without being wealthy, together with all the pseudo-moralists and ethicists and cowardice mongers generally, would be exterminated without shrift, to the unutterable enlargement of life and ennoblement of humanity.

But any Christian caught kidding them he's a Moslem would be for it short shrift.

At the hands of the mob, however, her shrift would presumably have been short and sure.

At this point the State Department became informed of what had taken place, and the acting Governor had short shrift.

To exercise myself in the art of war, I hunted the border thieves and gave them short enough shrift.

We'll get short shrift ifmy apparatus fails.

The rebels got short shrift from both.

But Monsieur Charles had short shrift when Napoleon's jealousy was aroused.

There was short shrift for poor Mary Hamilton when she was put on her trial on these grave charges.

As for Madame de Mailly, her shrift was short.