insult
Pluralinsults (some meanings)
Verbinsults, insulting, insulted
Pluralinsults (some meanings)
Formsinsults, insulting, insulted
- 1
- 2To be insensitive or rude to someone; to affront or demean a person.
The reviewer managed to insult the entire cast in a single sentence.
The host insulted her guests by yawning through their toasts.
Similardisrespect, affront, slander, demean
Oppositecompliment
Note
The everyday meaning hides a physical one. Latin īnsultō meant to spring or jump at someone, and it also already meant to abuse and taunt, so the jump from body to words happened before English borrowed it by way of Middle French. In modern use the verb takes a direct object: you insult someone, a group, or an idea. Its natural opposite is compliment.
- 3Something that makes people feel offended or disrespected, perhaps because its quality is unacceptably poor.
The settlement offer was an insult to the victims' families.
Critics dismissed the remake as an insult to the original film.
Oppositetribute, compliment, credit
Note
No one has to intend any offense here: a performance, a settlement offer or a marriage can be the insult. The usual frame is an insult to, followed by whatever is wronged. That might be someone's ears or, in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Shuttle (1907), “the manhood of any man and the womanhood of any woman.” Unlike the deliberate rude remark, the offense lies in the thing's quality, not in anyone's aim.
- 4Something that causes disease or damage to the body or its processes, or the injury that results.
Repeated chemical insult eventually scarred the lung tissue.
Doctors monitored the patient for signs of further neurological insult after the stroke.
Similarinjury, damage, trauma, harm
Note
Medicine uses the word with every trace of rudeness removed. Researchers write of cells surviving “a variety of insults”, such as radiation, heat, toxic chemicals, or too much or too little oxygen. The noun is often narrowed by a modifier, as in neural insult or teratological insult. It works both as a mass noun and as a count noun, and it has nothing to do with the rude remark.
- 5An assault or attack; specifically, in older military use, an assault or onset carried out without preparation.
The garrison drove back the first insult but fell to the second.
The government was continually expoſed to the inſults of a faction, and deſtitute of the neceſſary reſources.
1784, “From the Accession of James to the English Crown, to the Battle of Kilrush, in the Reign of Charles I”, in The History of IrelandNote
Archaic now, and its narrow military meaning, a sudden onset made without preparation, is obsolete outright. Dryden's 1697 Aeneid uses it for a charge the Latin troops welcome. Elsewhere a government is left “exposed to the insults of a faction”, which are political attacks rather than armed ones. The verb behind it is the obsolete sense of assailing. In either form, read it as attack, not affront.
- 6To assail, assault, or attack; specifically, in military use, to carry out a sudden assault or attack without preparation.
Giue me thy knife, I will inſult on him, Flattering my ſelfes, as if it were the Moore, Come hither purpoſely to poyſon me.
c. 1588, William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”Not with more madneſs, rolling from afar, / The ſpumy Waves proclaim the watry War. / And mounting upwards, with a mighty Roar, / March onwards, and inſult the rocky ſhoar.
1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”Note
Older texts use it with swords rather than words. Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus pairs it with on (“I will insult on him”), and Dryden's 1697 Virgil shows the figurative stretch, with waves that “insult the rocky shore”. In military writing it meant falling on an enemy with no preparation. In such passages, read it as attack, not offend. Its noun partner is the archaic sudden assault.
- 7To act toward someone in an arrogant, offensive way, as though one were above them.
Now with the drops of this moſt balmie time, / My loue lookes freſh, and death to me ſubſcribes, / Since ſpight of him Ile liue in this poore time / While he inſults ore dull and ſpeachleſſe tribes.
1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 107”And doe you ſe how he inſulteth ouer me, as though hee had gotten a great aduantage, and how hee taketh heere his reuenge vpon me, for the ſhipwracke hee ſuffered before, in the matter of his ſyllogyſme?
1609, Robert Persons, “The First Chapter Ansvvering to the First of M. Thomas Mortons Three Vaine Inquiryes, Concerning the Witt, Memorie…Note
Gloating is the heart of it, and the giveaway is the preposition over. Robert Persons complains of an opponent who “insulteth over me”, and Shakespeare's Sonnet 107 has death that “insults o'er dull and speechless tribes”. The target is usually someone already beaten or helpless. In a modern sentence insult over sounds wrong, so this construction is one to recognize in seventeenth-century prose, not to imitate.
- 8To leap upon something, or to trample it underfoot.
So looks the pent-vp Lyon o're the Wretch, / That trembles vnder his deuouring Pawes: / And ſo he walkes, inſulting o're his Prey, / And ſo he comes, to rend his Limbes aſunder.
c. 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt,”Note
The Latin leap behind the everyday verb survives here in the flesh, though only rarely. In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, a lion walks “insulting o'er his prey” before tearing it apart. The line shows how close leaping on a victim sits to gloating over one, which is the meaning of the obsolete gloating verb.
- 9An act of leaping upon something or someone.
The Bull's Inſult at Four ſhe [the mother cow] may ſuſtain; / But, after Ten, from Nuptial Rites refrain. / Six Seaſons uſe; but then releaſe the Cow, / Unfit for Love, and for the lab'ring Plough.
1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”Note
Dryden's 1697 Georgics keep the bodily leap of the Latin source, using the noun for a bull mounting a cow: “The Bull's Insult at Four she may sustain.” This use has long been obsolete and now appears only in older texts. There a modern reader will hear the rude remark unless the context makes the leap plain.
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Origin
The verb comes, via Middle French 'insulter', from Latin 'īnsultō' (to spring or leap at or upon; also to abuse, insult, or taunt), a frequentative of 'īnsiliō' (to leap in or upon), from 'in-' plus 'saliō' (to jump or leap), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sel- (to spring). The noun similarly derives, via Middle French 'insult', from Late Latin 'insultus' (insult, reviling, scoffing).