scorn
Americannoun
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scorns
plural
verb (used with object)
-
scorns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scorned,
past participle, past
-
scorning
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
scorns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scorned,
past participle, past
-
scorning
present participle
idioms
noun
-
open contempt or disdain for a person or thing; derision
-
an object of contempt or derision
-
archaic an act or expression signifying contempt
verb
-
to treat with contempt or derision
-
(tr) to reject with contempt
Synonym Usage
See contempt.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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scornernoun
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scornfulnessnoun
-
self-scornnoun
-
outscornverb (used with object)
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scornfuladjective
-
scornfullyadverb
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scorninglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
scornsimple
-
scornssimple
-
have scornedperfect
-
has scornedperfect
-
am scorningprogressive
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are scorningprogressive
-
is scorningprogressive
-
have been scorningperfect progressive
-
has been scorningperfect progressive
Past
-
scornedsimple
-
had scornedperfect
-
was scorningprogressive
-
were scorningprogressive
-
had been scorningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scorn
First recorded in 1150–1200; (noun) Middle English scorn, scarn, from Old French escarn, from Germanic (compare obsolete Dutch schern “mockery, trickery”); (verb) Middle English skarnen, sc(h)ornen, from Old French escharnir, eschernir, ultimately from Germanic
Explanation
Scorn is open disrespect for someone or something. It can also be disrespect coupled with feelings of intense dislike. The noun scorn describes your feelings of disdain when you encounter something you view as worthless or inferior — like, for instance, a talk show that gets all its facts wrong. Use the verb form for those times when you’re actively expressing scorn. You might scorn a politician who spends $100,000 on travel while claiming to work hard promoting middle-class values.
Vocabulary lists containing scorn
"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act I
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Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
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List 7
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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:
Much of his scorn, for example, is directed at the millennial Lean In crowd that wanted women to be more like successful men—ambitious and loud.
From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2026
“Trainspotting” is in part a sly corrective to “Clockwork,” which heaped scorn on both criminals and criminal justice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Or maybe Becerra was, indeed, a feckless, flailing and thoroughly awful Cabinet member, deserving of scorn and shame.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2026
The UK’s scorn for Eurovision is something Finland also used to struggle with.
From BBC ● May 17, 2026
If he had hoped to heap scorn on me, it hadn’t worked.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
The once beloved shoe maker has become the stock that Wall Street scorns.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
More than once Mr. Vance scorns elite “strivers” and purports to feel shame that he once tried hard to gain admittance to their circles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Last month, Vance, a self-described foreign policy “realist” who scorns the practice of describing countries as “good guys” and “bad guys,” caused quite a stir at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2025
And she consistently scorns consideration of congressional intent.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2023
I tells them how it happened in a dream, but they scorns me.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
These same dons disdained Britain’s provincial universities—known pejoratively as Redbrick—as well as academics in the U.S., whom they scorned for going about their business with “woefully unnecessary seriousness.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
There are few things more universally powerful than a mama’s boy scorned.
From Salon ● May 10, 2026
However, he has scorned the description of Opendoor as a meme stock, describing it instead as a “cult stock.”
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025
He hated the government and scorned taxes, which the government noticed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2025
Her older sisters had scorned their father by seizing control after he was forced to flee Alexandria.
From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby
When Ferrari revealed the Purosangue three years ago, many in the red brigade derided the design and, more generally, the very idea of a Ferrari sport-utility vehicle, scorning it as a sort of heresy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
We had both gone to law school to pursue public interest law, scorning classmates whose sole ambition was to land a job at a big firm and make six figures upon graduation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2023
By scorning this routine digital probing, they attenuate their safety and intensify their exhilaration in roughly equal measure.
From New York Times ● Jul. 12, 2022
He spent a lifetime scorning bigotry as not only immoral but irrational and un-American.
From Slate ● Feb. 16, 2022
Now they had all seen—everyone in the shop—and no doubt were scorning him for a poor sort of creature, cringing and puny, unable to defend himself.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
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.
