scorn
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
Alteration of Old French escarn (cognate with Portuguese escárnio, Spanish escarnio and Italian scherno).
Pronunciation [edit]
Verb [edit]
scorn (third-person singular simple present scorns, present participle scorning, simple past and past participle scorned)
- (transitive) To feel or display contempt or disdain for something or somebody; to despise.
- C. J. Smith
- We scorn what is in itself contemptible or disgraceful.
- C. J. Smith
- (intransitive) To scoff, express contempt.
- (transitive) To reject, turn down
- He scorned her romantic advances.
Synonyms [edit]
- See also Wikisaurus:despise
Translations [edit]
to feel contempt or disdain for something or somebody
|
to scoff or express contempt
to reject
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Noun [edit]
scorn (countable and uncountable; plural scorns)
- (uncountable) Contempt or disdain.
- (countable) A display of disdain; A slight.
Usage notes [edit]
- Scorn is often used in the phrases pour scorn on and heap scorn on.
Quotations [edit]
- circa 1605: The cry is still 'They come': our castle's strength / Will laugh a siege to scorn — William Shakespeare, Macbeth
- 1967, Rain of tears, real, mist of imagined scorn — John Berryman, Berryman's Sonnets. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Synonyms [edit]
- See also Wikisaurus:contempt
Translations [edit]
contempt, disdain
