SPURN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Spurn

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/spərn/ Listen

verb

Spurn v. t. (past & past part. spurned; pres. part. spurning)

1.

To drive back or away, as with the foot; to kick. "(The bird) with his foot will spurn adown his cup." "I spurn thee like a cur out of my way."

2.

To reject with disdain; to scorn to receive or accept; to treat with contempt. "What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn." "Domestics will pay a more cheerful service when they find themselves not spurned because fortune has laid them at their master's feet."

Spurn v. i.

1.

To kick or toss up the heels. "The miller spurned at a stone." "The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns."

2.

To manifest disdain in rejecting anything; to make contemptuous opposition or resistance. "Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image."

noun

Spurn n.

1.

A kick; a blow with the foot. (R.) "What defense can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn?"

2.

Disdainful rejection; contemptuous treatment. "The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes."

3.

(Mining) A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.

See images of 'Spurn'

Etymology of 'Spurn'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spurn" Quotes from Famous Books

... audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... youth ne'er seen before. A good and loving wife wast thou, But all, alas! is altered now. What terror can have seized thy breast To make thee frame this dire request, That Bharat o'er the land may reign, And Rama in the woods remain? Turn from thine evil ways, O turn, And thy perfidious counsel spurn, If thou would fain a favour do To people, lord, and Bharat too. O wicked traitress, fierce and vile, Who lovest deeds of sin and guile, What crime or grievance dost thou see, What fault in Rama or in me? Thy son will ne'er the throne accept If Rama from his rights ...

— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... down at himself.] She'd spurn me from the door were I to stand there knocking—in the coat I have upon me now. No—let her go her way and wed ...

— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... stars which burn on high— By the green earth—the mighty sea— By God's unshaken majesty, We will be free or die! Then let the drums all roll! Let all the trumpets blow! Mind, heart, and soul, We spurn control ...

— War Poetry of the South • Various

... which the rapids run is already scooped and hollowed out to a great extent by the action of the water; the edge of the precipice, too, is constantly crumbling and breaking off under the spurn of its downward leap. At the very brink the rock is not much more than two feet thick, and when I stood under it and thought of the enormous mass of water rushing over and pouring from it, it did not seem at all improbable that at any moment ...

— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

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