Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Contemptuous |
ContemptuousAdjective1. Expressing extreme contempt. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "contemptuous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Tips from 1870 | Usage: Contemptible, Contemptuous. Contemptible is sometimes incorrectly used for contemptuous. A story is told of Richard Parson, an English scholar and critic. A gentleman being in dispute with him, angrily exclaimed, "My opinion of you is most contemptible, sir," upon which Parson quickly retorted, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible." Source: Slips of Speech. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: ContemptuousSynonyms: disdainful (adj), insulting (adj), scornful (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Contempt | Adjective: contemptuous; disdainful, scornful; withering, contumelious, supercilious, cynical, haughty, bumptious, cavalier; derisive. |
Disrespect | Adjective: disrespectful; aweless, irreverent; disparaging; insulting;Verb: supercilious, contemptuous, patronizing; (scornful); rude, derisive, sarcastic; scurrile, scurrilous; contumelious. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Contemptuous |
| English words defined with "contemptuous": accent ♦ Bantling ♦ Consistorian, contempt ♦ defiance, derision, Despite, Despiteous, disrespect, Doughface ♦ flout ♦ In idle ♦ Jacquerie ♦ maligned ♦ Outfling ♦ Pshaw ♦ Rebec, rebelliousness, reviled ♦ scoff, sirrah, sneer, speech pattern ♦ Tom, Tossy ♦ Uncle Tom, unmaligned, unreviled. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "contemptuous": Contemptible ♦ FOOT WABBLER ♦ RATTLE-TRAPS ♦ Steam-kettles. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "contemptuous": Tossy. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | That sarcastic contemptuous tone (The Birdcage; writing credit: Elaine May. Based on the play by Jean Poiret, and the screenplay 'La Cage aux Folles' by Francis Veber, Edouard Molinaro, Marcello Danon and Jean Poiret.) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | To whom could this contemptuous familiarity be addressed |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Samoa | The Samoa Observer published an apology to the Court on August 9, noting that the editorial board recognized the difference between fair comment about the court system and the "defamatory and contemptuous comments" published in the letter. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Contemptuous" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.71% of the time. "Contemptuous" is used about 233 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.71% | 230 | 19,815 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.29% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 233 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "contemptuous": be contemptuous of smth.. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "contemptuous": self-contemptuous. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
contemptuous | 5 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "contemptuous"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | përbuzës (cynical, disdainful, pejorative, scornful, Sniffy, snooty), përçmues (depreciatingly, disdainful, lofty, pejorative, scornful, Sniffy, withering). (various references) | |
Arabic | محقر (insulted, insulting, opprobrious), مزدر (disdainful, scornful), راشح بالإزدراء. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | който се отнася с презрение, надменен (airy, aloof, arrogant, assuming, assumptive, cool, disdainful, haughty, high, high and mighty, imperious, lofty, offhand, offish, overbearing, overweening, prideful, proud, proud-stomached, remote, scornful, stand offish, stiff, stuck up, sublime, supercilious, superior, top-lofty, uppish), презрителен (disdainful, disparaging, railing, scornful, supercilious). (various references) | |
Chinese | 輕視 (contempt, despise, scorn, scornful), 傲慢 (Arrogance, Arrogant, Boastful, Boastfulness, haughty, IMMODEST, insolent, Overbearing). (various references) | |
Czech | pohrdavý (disdainful, dismissive, scornful, supercilious), opovržlivý (disdainful, scornful). (various references) | |
Farsi | مغرورانه (Lofty, Vain), قابل تحقیر, تحقیرامیز (Pejorative), اهانت امیز. (various references) | |
Finnish | ylenkatseellinen (disdainful, scornful), halveksiva (scornful). (various references) | |
French | méprisant, de mépris, dédaigneux. (various references) | |
German | geringschätzig (contemptuously, disparaging, slighting), verachtungsvoll (disdainful). (various references) | |
Greek | περιφρονητικόσ (disdainful, scornful), περιφρονητικός (condescending, disdainful, scornful). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מ'ל" בוז. (various references) | |
Hungarian | szemtelen (arrogant, audacious, be insolent, brash, brassy, brazen, cheeky, immodest, impertinent, impudent, insolent, leer, malapert, naughty, perky, pert, presumptuous, sassy, saucy, shameless, unblushing), megvető (disdainful, to flout), lenéző (disdainful, sniffy). (various references) | |
Italian | sprezzante (abject, derogative, derogatory, disdainful, disparaging, scornful, Sniffy), sdegnoso (disdainful, scornful, sniffy), dispregiativo (derogative, derogatory, disparaging, pejorative). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | "棄 (despicable). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | き (despicable, indolence, listlessness). (various references) | |
Korean | 모욕 (insult, insulting). (various references) | |
Manx | lunagh (mocker, reproachful, rude, rude person, sarcastic, slanderer, slandering, slanderous). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ontemptuouscay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | insolente (arrogant, cockish, contumelious, flip, huffy, immodest, impertinent, insolent, lingerer, lord-like, malapert, pert, rough, rude, saucy, thrasonical, uppity), desdenhoso (contumelious, disdainful, sardonic, scornful, sniffy, stuck-up, supercilious). (various references) | |
Romanian | plin de dispreţ, obraznic (audacious, bad, barefaced, bold, boldly, brazenly, cheekily, cheeky, cocky, cool, disobedient, flippant, forward, fresh, graceless, impertinent, impudent, insolent, nasty, naughty, nervy, obtrusive, perky, pert, pertly, presumptuous, provocative, rebellious, sauce box, saucy, unruly, untoward, uppish), dispreţuitor (contemptuously, defiant, despiteful, disdainful, flouting, haughtily, scornful, Sniffy, supercilious). (various references) | |
Russian | презрительный (disdainful, scornful, snooty). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | prezriv (scornful), preziran (abject, contemptible). (various references) | |
Spanish | despreciativo (scornful, snide), despectivo (derogative, derogatory, disparaging, dyslogistic), desden~oso, desdeñoso (cavalier, disdainful, scornful, Sniffy, supercilious, superior). (various references) | |
Swedish | hånfull (derisive, derisory, jeering, mocking, sardonic, scornful, sneering), föraktfull (disdainful, opprobrious, sniffy). (various references) | |
Turkish | küçültücü (degrading, depreciatory, derogatory, detractive, humiliating, ignoble, ignominious, pejorative), hor gören (condescending, disparaging, underestimating, underrating), aşağılayıcı (disparaging, humiliating, ignoble, ignominious, insolent, insulting, opprobrious, pejorative, scornful), ağır (arduous, back breaking, badly, bovine, burdensome, cumbersome, cumbrous, deep, deliberate, dignified, drudging, dull, fabian, foul, grave, grievous, hard, harsh, heavily, heavy, hefty, indigestible, languid, lazy, lumbering, massive, measured, muzzy, not fast, onerous, oppressive, plodding, ponderous, repressive, rich, scorching, scornful, serious, serious minded, seriously, severe, severely, sharp, slack, slashing, slow, slow moving, slowly, sluggish, smashing, stodgy, strenuous, strong, swingeing, toilful, toilsome, unwholesome, unwieldy, weighty). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | зарозумілий (arrogant, audacious, dogmatic, dogmatical, domineering, high and mighty, highbrow, insolent, lordly, overbearing, overly, overweening, proud, self-conceited, self-explanatory, self-important, snooty, stately, stiff necked, stuck up, topping, upstage), презирливий (despicable, disdainful, scornful, supercilious). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | coi thường; tỏ vẻ khinh bỉ, khinh thường, khinh người, khinh khỉnh (supercilious). (various references) | |
Welsh | tremygus (insulting), diystyrllyd (disdainful), diystyr (contemptible), dirmygus (contemptible), dibris (reckless), atethol. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | despiciens. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "contemptuous": contemptuously, contemptuousness, contemptuousnesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Contemptuous" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: comtemptuous, contemptious, contemptous, contemptuos, contemptuou, contempuous, contemputuous, contemtuous. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "contemptuous" (pronounced kunte"mpkhuwus) |
| 4 | -kh uw u s | tempestuous, tumultuous, virtuous. |
| 3 | -uw u s | ambiguous, arduous, conspicuous, contiguous, continuous, deciduous, disingenuous, incongruous, ingenuous, innocuous, strenuous, vacuous. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-m-n-o-o-p-s-t-t-u-u" | |
-3 letters: contempts, outcounts. | |
-4 letters: compotes, computes, contempt, metopons, outcomes, outcount, outspent, potstone, topstone. | |
-5 letters: centums, coempts, compone, compose, compost, compote, compute, consume, contest, contuse, copouts, costume, cottons, coupons, cutouts, metopon, moonset, mottoes, moutons, muttons, nocuous, octopus, outcome, outmost, outpost, outputs, postmen, pounces, putouts, soupcon, spumone, stouten, tectums, tenuous, tenutos, testoon, topmost, tuneups. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-m-n-o-o-p-s-t-t-u-u" | |
+2 letters: contemptuously. | |
+4 letters: contemptuousness. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Quotations: Fiction 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Translations: Ancient 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
