DictionaryAI

disdain

USdis-DAYN/dɪsˈdeɪn/

Verbdisdains, disdaining, disdained

5 meanings of disdain

Practice

  1. 1
    contemptnoununcountable
    A feeling of scorn or contempt for someone or something considered unworthy.

    The critic made no effort to hide her disdain for the remake.

    Many voters feel nothing but disdain for politicians who break their promises.

    Similarcontempt, scorn, derision

    Oppositerespect, admiration, esteem

    Note

    The feeling takes for when it has a target (disdain for the remake) and with when it colors how something is done (the cat viewed the food with disdain). Older English also had in disdain of, meaning out of contempt for: Marlowe's Tamburlaine has a man who, in disdain of wrong and tyranny, dared defend his freedom. Shakespeare pairs it with scorn in Much Ado About Nothing.

  2. 2
    look down onverbtransitive
    To look on someone or something with strong contempt.

    Purists disdain any pizza topped with pineapple.

    The general disdained his advisers and ignored every warning they gave.

    Similarscorn, despise, spurn

    Oppositerespect, admire, esteem

    Note

    Besides a direct object, the verb takes to and another verb, and then it means refusing something as beneath you: E. H. Palmer's translation of the Qur'an (1880) says the Messiah does not disdain to be a servant of God. Negated, as there, it praises humility; stated plainly it marks pride, as in a man who disdains to ask for help.

  3. 3
    be offendedverbobsoleteintransitive
    To be indignant or offended.
    Note

    In older English the verb could stand alone, with no object, meaning to feel insulted or indignant. Tyndale's New Testament of 1526 says that when the chief priests and scribes saw the marvels he did, they desdayned. Modern English needs an object, or to and another verb, so the bare use is met only in old texts.

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    hateful thingnounobsoleteuncountable
    Something that deserves to be regarded with contempt and aversion.
    Most loathsom, filthy, foul, and full of vile Disdain.
    1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
    Note

    An obsolete use that names what deserves scorn rather than the feeling itself. Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) lines it up with loathsome, filthy and foul, as one more word for something vile. A modern reader meeting it in old verse should read it as a noun for the object, close to abomination, not as an emotion.

  2. 5
    disgracenounobsoleteuncountable
    The condition of being despised by others; shame.

    Once the fraud came to light, the banker fell from honor into disdain.

    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun ; Exempt from envy , but not from disdain
    c. 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt,”
    Note

    Here the word turns around and names the condition of the person scorned, close to disgrace, instead of the scorner's feeling. Shakespeare uses it this way in Henry VI, Part 3: "Exempt from envy, but not from disdain." A modern reader would hear the feeling instead, so the sense is one for reading old texts, not for writing new ones.

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Origin

From Middle English disdeynen, from Old French desdeignier (modern French dédaigner).