disdainful
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of disdainful
Explanation
Disdainful means scornful and arrogant. To be disdainful is to act mean and superior. If you're acting haughty, imperious, lordly, overbearing, prideful, sniffy, supercilious, or swaggering, you're acting disdainful. The great Michael Jordan was known to be disdainful of his opponents — and even teammates who couldn't keep up with him. Arrogant people with their nose in the air are disdainful. This can also have an even harsher sense, meaning contemptuous. Either way, that person who gave you the disdainful look doesn’t like you (or at least something you did) very much.
Vocabulary lists containing disdainful
ACT Reading Test: Words to Capture Tone, List 1
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Stargirl
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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.
Disdainful of her clients and frustrated by the financial disadvantage of hewing to strict ethics, Olga enters into some shady business dealings: padding orders for liquor and caviar and selling the surplus.
From New York Times • Jan. 10, 2022
Disdainful of experts who could have advised them on tropical agriculture, Ford’s men planted seeds of questionable value and let leaf blight ravage the plantation.
From New York Times • Feb. 20, 2017
Disdainful of them, he barely spent time with his family, many times looking down on them, communicating through sarcasm and irony.
From Forbes • Apr. 23, 2015
Disdainful of heavy-footed wooing, it changes into wind or cloud—into air, most likely, for fancy, of all the elements of the mind, most nearly resembles air.
From Time Magazine Archive
Near it are: 984, The Disdainful; 986, Gathering in a Park.
From The Story of Paris by Kimball, Katherine
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.
