Definition of "ingrate"

Many of theſe might ſeem ingrate and unkind children, that vvill no better acknovvledge and recogniſe their parents in vvords and outvvard pretence, but abrenounce and caſt them off, as though they hated them as dogs and ſerpents.The spelling has been modernized.

1536 June 16 (Gregorian calendar), Hugh Latimer, “Sermon II. Master Latimer’s Discourse on the Same Day in the Afternoon [Preached to the Convocation of the Clergy, before the Parliament Began, the Sixth Day of June, the Twenty Eighth Year of the Reign of the Late King Henry VIII].”, in The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, Master Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester. […], volume I, London: […] J. Scott, […], published 1758, page 24

Yet in his mind malitious and ingrate

1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer / As high in the air as this unthankful king, / As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

The causes of that which is pleasing , or ingrate to the hearing , may receive light by that which is pleasing or ingrate to the sight

1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]

Who, for ſo many benefits receiv'd, / Turn'd recreant to God, ingrate and falſe, / And ſo of all true good himſelf deſpoil'd, […]

1671, John Milton, “The Third Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], page 61

thou art among the stars / of highest Heaven: to the rolling spheres / Thou sweetly singest: naught thy hymning mars, / Above the ingrate world and human fears.

c. 1820, John Keats, Sonnet to Chatterton; published 1901 in The Poetical Works of John Keats in "The World's Classics", reprinted (New edition) 1927, London: Oxford University Press, p. 261

But Mr Pecksniff, dismissing all ephemeral considerations of social pleasure and enjoyment, concentrated his meditations on the one great virtuous purpose before him, of casting out that ingrate and deceiver, whose presence yet troubled his domestic hearth, and was a sacrilege upon the altars of his household gods.

1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844

"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham

1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861

Out of my sight, ingrate!

1893, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, Utopia, Limited; […]

The consensus—certainly among the great and the good of Cambridge, Massachusetts—was that he was an ultranationalist, a reactionary, and, above all, an ingrate.

2024 February 20, Eliot A. Cohen, “Solzhenitsyn’s Warning”, in The Atlantic‎