"Doubt not my sanctity," interrupted the Friar, "or I shall be necessitated to convince thee, by shewing thee a cast of my office which will make thee repent of thy error. I am used to give short shrifts and sharp cords."

"I demand a brief space and a confessor, to make my peace with heaven." […] "Grant his request," said the archbishop, in a careless tone, which showed that he only spoke to save appearances; "my chaplain, upon whose discretion I can rely, will make short shrift with them."

[A]n hour was allotted him to make peace with the Unknown; ropes were placed around the necks of the three, and at the end of the time they were given short shrift, and were soon hanging between heaven and earth.

"Here is a spy of the enemy, General," said the Sergeant. / "Make short shrift of him! We have no time for court-martials now." / "He's been condemned already, sir. He's the same man that was rescued from under the gallows by Commodore Stout's men."

Where actual disloyalty could be directly or constructively proved, the Crown made short shrift about surrenders, as in the case of those houses which were implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace: the monks were tied up to the nearest beam, the abbots condemned to the halter and the butcher's knife (on which [Oliver] Cromwell called "sorted" evidence), and the property at once confiscated.

One of the most picturesque objects in Amsterdam was the Herring-packers' Tower. Here persons suspected of heresy were confined, and given short shrift, being thrown out at night, tied hands and feet, into the Y.

The bank gave me short shrift when I applied for a loan.

It will scarcely be believed that this heavy burden is sought to be discharged in a way which would meet with very short shrift in any judicial tribunal, or, for the matter of that, in any tribunal presided over by sound common-sense and judgment.

Some environmentalists are critical of TACB for being too pro-business and giving short shrifts to their concerns.

Until fairly recent times, Native Americans involved in crimes were often gratuitously identified in the local press as Indians. In some papers tribal concerns were given short shrift.

"Winterfell" does a lot of work in a short amount of time, but unlike some previous episodes that engaged in significant table setting, it never feels too rushed or like characters are being given short shrift in the effort to hurry to the next beat.

But [Donald] Trump's biggest crime Wednesday night was the short shrift he gave to what should have been his core message: Keep your distance.

[L]ast week that scoundrel of a factor went to the hut with two of his men and seized the cow because they couldn't pay the rent—said his lordship advised him to give short shrift, since indulgence did not pay—that he himself was in want of money for his travels, and must get the rents of Uribol.

The moral sense of the world would have been shocked at the spectacle of a vulgar commonplace ruffian who, in a public railway saloon, publicly shot the chief magistrate of the United States, in the presence of a Cabinet minister and a number of spectators. Taken in the very fact, with his smoking pistol in hand, it would be thought that his shrift would be short. But short shrifts do not pay the gentlemen of the long robe, and, accordingly, day after day and week after week was the legal farce prolonged.

He made all haste to the building and notified the fire department, who made short shrift of the small conflagration.

Short shrift

Meaning

Noun

Rhymes