misesteem

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ esteem. Compare French mésestime.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌmɪsɪsˈtiːm/
• Rhymes: -iːm

Noun

misesteem (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Lack of esteem; disrespect.
   • 1867, Georgina Fullerton, A Stormy Life:

     The daily sight of this my sovereign's sweet humility, and his detachment from earthly things, works in me a contagious misesteem for this brief life […]

   • 1887, Oswald John F. Crawfurd, Beyond the seas, page 55:

     Not but that his Lordship, what with his own wide reading of the ancients, his soldier's life, and therefore constant listening in the camp and at the mess to the just defamation of the sex by honest fellows by it cajoled, and as an effect of my own constant hortations in season and out, had arrived at such a misesteem and despizal of womankind as even I could scarce wish made stronger.

   • 1898, John Edward Courtenay Bodley, The revolution and modern France:

     The years after the war mark the lowest depths of misesteem attached to the Napoleonic legend since Las Cases published the Memorial.

Verb

misesteem (third-person singular simple present misesteems, present participle misesteeming, simple past and past participle misesteemed)

1. (transitive) To hold in the wrong esteem; to disrespect.
   • 1640, Henry More, The Song of the Soul:

     Whatever man he be that dares to deem True poet's skill to spring of earthly race, I must him tell, that he doth misesteem Their strange estate, and eke himself disgrace By his rude ignorance.

   • 1892, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Harold:

     "My good friend Sexwolf," quoth the Norman, in very tolerable Saxon, “I pray you not so to misesteem us."

   • 1894, Alfred Thomas Story, James Holmes and John Varley, page 65:

     And yet, what does it matter though the low-trailing lights of a decadent literature and a fainéant criticism belittle and misesteem?