spurned

American  

[spurnd] / spɜrnd /

adjective

1. treated or rejected with scorn or contempt.

   It should be instructive to us that some of the spurned recommendations were very effective when belatedly implemented years after they were made.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of spurn.

Other Word Forms

• unspurned
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of spurned

spurn ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Explanation

Someone who's spurned has been abandoned or rejected, usually by a romantic interest. If your significant other breaks up with you unexpectedly, you might feel spurned. It's not easy to be a spurned lover, since the adjective implies total rejection by someone you love. A spurned groom, for example, might wait at the church on his wedding day for a bride who never shows up. The Old English root word of spurned makes this rejection pretty clear: spurnan means "to kick away, reject, scorn, or despise."

Example Sentences

"Musk has tried to take over OpenAI multiple times. He's been spurned," Lund told the BBC.

From BBC • Apr. 28, 2026

Discovery is cracking open the door to allow spurned bidder, Paramount Skydance, to make its case — but Warner’s board still maintains its preference for Netflix’s competing proposal.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 17, 2026

As Kyle Cheney reported in Politico, at least 360 judges have spurned the government’s reasoning in more than 3,000 cases.

From Slate • Feb. 10, 2026

Takaichi spurned the chance for an apprenticeship at a Japanese conglomerate to instead take a job in Washington, D.C.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 6, 2026

Arriving in Washington with the same sort of desire and energy to contribute, though, she’d been roundly spurned, pilloried for taking on a policy role in the White House’s work on health-care reform.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

Related Words

• decayed
• deserted
• ignored
• overlooked
• undervalued
• unused
• unwanted