disdain
Americanverb (used with object)
-
disdains,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disdained,
past participle, past
-
disdaining
present participle
noun
noun
verb
Synonym Usage
See contempt.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
disdainsimple
-
disdainssimple
-
have disdainedperfect
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has disdainedperfect
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am disdainingprogressive
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are disdainingprogressive
-
is disdainingprogressive
-
have been disdainingperfect progressive
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has been disdainingperfect progressive
Past
-
disdainedsimple
-
had disdainedperfect
-
was disdainingprogressive
-
were disdainingprogressive
-
had been disdainingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disdain
First recorded in 1300–50; (for the verb) Middle English disdainen, from Anglo-French de(s)deigner, equivalent to dis- 1 + deign; noun derivative of the verb
Explanation
If you feel that something isn't worthy of your consideration, you may disdain it (or treat it with disdain). In Old French, deignier meant "to treat something as worthy." To disdain something, then, is to treat it with contempt: "Management at [the company] displayed a certain disdain for safety and appeared to regard safety-conscious workers as wimps in the organization." As a verb, disdain carries an air of self-righteousness not associated with similar words like despise, abhor, detest, loathe and scorn. So if you disdain something, you might reject it with a haughty scoff, "Ha!"
Vocabulary lists containing disdain
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 1
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100 Top "SAT" Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A hotbed of feminist rebellion, its corset-shattering, myth-busting history encompasses a journey of emancipation, imagination, and healthy disdain for patriarchal expectations.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
"There's a sort of disdain for things AI."
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
Only much later in life did Steinem, who wrote a biography about Monroe, realize her initial disdain wasn’t the actress’ fault.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026
Anna keeps prefacing her remarks with the words “no offense,” but Pete can’t help being offended by her pointed disdain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
Big Ma’s disdain bounced right off of Lucy.
From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia
With no action expected on rates on Wednesday, the attention will be on him: Will he submit a forecast for rate projections he disdains?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
The former Fox News personality, who served as an Army National Guard infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, disdains rules of engagement and other guardrails as constraining to the “warrior ethos.”
From Salon ● Mar. 11, 2026
Plot synopses of “Carmen” traditionally depicted a young man reduced to despair and driven to violence by the charms of a wild woman who works in a cigarette factory and disdains conventional morality.
From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2022
A gray eminence of the avant-garde theater world, Iván disdains the bourgeois sensibilities of Félix’s fans and the kind of work he does to entertain them.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 21, 2022
Do you see how awful it is to be in love with someone who disdains you?
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
Air conditioning, long disdained in France, is "no longer taboo at all", Jehanno said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Forster’s marriage also brought him suffering—he was disdained by his wife and cuckolded by his friends—indeed, his marital situation may have given Goethe the basis for his 1809 novel “Elective Affinities.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Planning is for weaklings, rational analysis is disdained, the amygdala and the gut replace the cerebral cortex.
From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2026
Its clunky and widely disdained Cybertruck is beginning to look like a lemon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2025
Years later he told me how religious faith was so disdained at Harvard and so important to the poor—not just in Haiti but elsewhere—that he’d become convinced that faith must be something good.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
How does a young woman go from disdaining weapons to designing them?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025
Nxe3 Bf6!, again disdaining the rook on h4 to keep the attack humming.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 19, 2023
Though “Vs.” is more of a reverse Kafka, with the witnesses disdaining the court’s authority.
From New York Times ● Aug. 1, 2021
Many musical purists looked down on the genre, disdaining renditions of Bach on the synthesizer and performances by Luciano Pavarotti in which the Italian tenor sweatily belted out Neapolitan standards.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2020
He growled and muttered and then lay down on his side, his eyes closed, as if disdaining his tormentors.
From "Tiger, Tiger" by Lynne Reid Banks
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
