opprobrious
Americanadjective
-
conveying or expressing opprobrium, as language or a speaker.
opprobrious invectives.
- Synonyms:
- contemptuous, vituperative, abusive, reproachful
- Antonyms:
- laudatory
-
outrageously disgraceful or shameful.
opprobrious conduct.
- Synonyms:
- ignominious, dishonorable
- Antonyms:
- reputable
adjective
-
expressing scorn, disgrace, or contempt
-
shameful or infamous
Other Word Forms
- nonopprobrious adjective
- nonopprobriously adverb
- nonopprobriousness noun
- opprobriously adverb
- opprobriousness noun
- unopprobrious adjective
- unopprobriously adverb
- unopprobriousness noun
Etymology
Origin of opprobrious
1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin opprobriōsus, equivalent to Latin opprobri ( um ) opprobrium + -ōsus -ous
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.
He hated the term “black” — back then spelled with a lowercase B — which had often been an opprobrious way of talking about the people to whose fight for equality he’d devoted his life.
From New York Times • Jul. 14, 2021
On the one hand Jerry has zoned in on a fertile topic for humour – the idea that remarking on something as simple as the motion of a hand could result in opprobrious censure.
From The Guardian • Aug. 3, 2017
The nation's urban public schools have lately been subjected to a tide of opprobrious criticism.
From Time Magazine Archive
One hesitates, despite the show's size, to use the opprobrious word blockbuster.
From Time Magazine Archive
He drives the cat away with every opprobrious epithet for she wakes in him "each bestial sense" and makes him what he "would not be."
From Oscar Wilde by Ingleby, Leonard Cresswell
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.
