gainsayer

If he had been interested only in anointing himself a gainsayer of modern art, he could have simply refused to make art at all and confined himself to showing up at gallery openings dressed as Savonarola.

Every Picture Tells 2008

Nor is it open to the gainsayer to contend that they were kings indeed but of some chance city.

Agesilaus 2007

But he adds: “And I do not see how they can argue with anyone or even convince a gainsayer who uses the same plea, without setting down strict boundaries between faith and reason.”

John Locke Uzgalis, William 2007

And I do not see how they can argue with any one, or ever convince a gainsayer who makes use of the same plea, without setting down strict boundaries between faith and reason; which ought to be the first point established in all questions where faith has anything to do.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

Although his supporters, who comprise mainly those in his age group, hold him in high reverence, the much more enlightened generation of young Zambians feel Kaunda has reduced himself from an eminent African statesman to a professional gainsayer who does not have the interests of the country at heart.

ANC Daily News Briefing 1995

But Ulf persisted not only in stubbornly repeating his praises of the king, but in bringing them to the proof; and proposed their gainsayer a wager.

The Danish History, Books I-IX Grammaticus Saxo

He was laughed to scorn as a half-mad enthusiast; denounced as a blasphemer and gainsayer of Scripture truth; cried down as an ignoramus, unworthy of the slightest attention from men of science; tantalised by half promises; wearied by vexatious delays: and yet never did his courage fail nor his purpose waver.

Amos Huntingdon T.P. Wilson

They were distinguished by native mental vigor, shrewdness, extraordinary knowledge of human nature, many of them by overwhelming natural eloquence, the effects of which on popular assemblies are scarcely paralleled in the history of ancient or modern oratory, and not a few by powers of satire and wit which made the gainsayer cower before them.

Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers Benj. N. Martin

The period was now arrived when our Chaplain, that stout gainsayer of the Herrnhut Brethren, must discover, to his deep, but I trust, sanctified humiliation, that his best and once most zealous hearers were now all leaning to the side of that Community.

Confessions of a Fair Saint. Book VI 1917

This she seals with the water of baptism, arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the eucharist, cheers with martyrdom, and against such a discipline thus maintained she admits no gainsayer.

A Source Book for Ancient Church History Joseph Cullen Ayer 1905