despise
Americanverb (used with object)
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despises,
present (3rd person singular)
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despised,
past participle, past
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despising
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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despisablenessnoun
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despisernoun
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despisableadjective
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undespisedadjective
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undespisingadjective
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despisinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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despisesimple
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despisessimple
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have despisedperfect
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has despisedperfect
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am despisingprogressive
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are despisingprogressive
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is despisingprogressive
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have been despisingperfect progressive
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has been despisingperfect progressive
Past
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despisedsimple
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had despisedperfect
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was despisingprogressive
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were despisingprogressive
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had been despisingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of despise
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English despisen, from Old French despis-, stem of despire, from Latin dēspicere; see despicable
Explanation
If the mere thought of a burrito with sour cream in it turns your stomach, you could say that you despise sour cream. You loathe it, abhor it, hate it, and think it's vile. Despise dates all the way back to the Latin word despicare, which combines de "down" with specere "to look at." So if you look down your nose at something, you could say you despise it. Nowadays the word gets used a lot to describe things people really, really dislike, too. Note how similar in meaning and spelling despise is to Sylvester the cartoon cat's old favorite catchphrase despicable. Despicable means something worth of being despised.
Vocabulary lists containing despise
"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 16–19
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Bridge to Terabithia
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Bronx Masquerade
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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:
“Let me be clear, it’s really difficult to both be proud of Kash and despise him at the same time,” Patel says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
Wealth advisers and investment managers are trying to convince their clients to embrace an asset class that many have grown to despise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
Cheer him, mock him or despise him; he’ll be here all week, so try the veal.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
Regional mayors were an untested concept at the time but Burnham made the role his own - and used it to build a powerful platform, untainted by the London-centric Westminster politics he professes to despise.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Similarly, throughout human history farmers have tended to despise hunter-gatherers as primitive, hunter-gatherers have despised farmers as ignorant, and herders have despised both.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
To deal with others, he has sent Karoline Leavitt, his pep secretary, into the Brady Briefing Room to handle the reporters he despises.
From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2026
There is something else Friedman despises: finishing second.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
With those words, Imai immediately became something of a folk hero to any baseball fan who despises the Dodgers—a group that currently includes just about everyone outside of L.A.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 16, 2025
Cicero, who despises Catalina for his reckless idealism, is one of many characters trying to bring the architect to heel.
From New York Times ● May 16, 2024
If she truly despises our family, I don’t want to be the object of her wrath.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
It’s about understanding that that the removal of a single despised figurehead isn’t enough.
From Salon ● May 8, 2026
Mr. Mellencamp sang a similar tune in a 1991 interview when he admitted becoming everything he earlier despised.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
Over the next few days, I did what any rational woman falling for a man with a cat she despised would do.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026
Hamilton despised those with “no principle but to get money.”
From Barron's ● Mar. 1, 2026
And the passion with which we loved the Lord was a measure of how deeply we feared and distrusted and, in the end, hated almost all strangers, always, and avoided and despised ourselves.
From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
He is described as a man who had “poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that aforesaid appearance of ‘sniff,’ as though despising an egg which he knew he could not digest.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Society is depicted as "worshiping only power and money, despising art, sensitivity, tenderness, where people ...don't talk anymore."
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
“I really started despising law enforcement after that,” he said during an interview.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2026
I see movies that I end up despising and I’m still glad I went because I got to have a pretzel and an ice-cold soda and not look at my phone for a few hours.”
From Salon ● Jan. 1, 2025
“We started off on each other’s nerves. We ended up despising each other. But that was a long time ago.”
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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.
