scorn

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English [edit]

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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)

  1. (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.
  2. (intransitive) To scoff, express contempt.
  3. (transitive) To reject, turn down
    He scorned her romantic advances.

Synonyms [edit]

Translations [edit]

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Noun [edit]

scorn (countable and uncountable; plural scorns)

  1. (uncountable) Contempt or disdain.
  2. (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 scornWilliam Shakespeare, Macbeth
  • 1967, Rain of tears, real, mist of imagined scorn — John Berryman, Berryman's Sonnets. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Synonyms [edit]

Translations [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Anagrams [edit]