CONTEMPT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Contempt

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/kəntˈɛmpt/ Listen

noun

Contempt n.

The act of contemning or despising; the feeling with which one regards that which is esteemed mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn. "Criminal contempt of public feeling." "Nothing, says Longinus, can be great, the contempt of which is great."

The state of being despised; disgrace; shame. "Contempt and begarry hangs upon thy back."

An act or expression denoting contempt. "Little insults and contempts." "The contempt and anger of his lip."

(Law) Disobedience of the rules, orders, or process of a court of justice, or of rules or orders of a legislative body; disorderly, contemptuous, or insolent language or behavior in presence of a court, tending to disturb its proceedings, or impair the respect due to its authority. Note: Contempt is in some jurisdictions extended so as to include publications reflecting injuriously on a court of justice, or commenting unfairly on pending proceedings; in other jurisdictions the courts are prohibited by statute or by the constitution from thus exercising this process.

Synonyms: Disdain; scorn; derision; mockery; contumely; neglect; disregard; slight.

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Etymology of 'Contempt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Contempt" Quotes from Famous Books

... some silver into his palm with shaking fingers. The youth, who was a bartender from a small saloon in the neighbourhood of the station, looked at him with contempt. ...

— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... underbrush. They disregard the prejudices of the world equally for evil and for good. And a moral independence which might furnish forth the most glorious of martyrs in invincible panoply is quite as likely to assist a hardy sinner. The sneer and sarcasm and contempt are for the conventionalities of the world, for the belief of the mass of mankind in right and wrong, and for the customs and habits which the republic of humanity has established for better assistance in the paths of virtue—as ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... father, though I had obeyed his wishes. It was by his arrangement that I spent so much of my time at home with the Woods, and yet it remained a grievance that I liked to do so. Whether my dear mother had given up all hopes of my becoming a genius I do not know, but my father's contempt for my absorption in a book was unabated. I felt this if he came suddenly upon me with my head in my hands and my nose in a tattered volume; and if I went on with my reading it was with a sense of being in the wrong, whilst if I shut up the book and tried to throw myself into outside interests, ...

— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Normans' feet. The higher Saxon clergy were replaced by the priests of Normandy, who had little sympathy with the people over whom they came, and the Saxon manuscripts were contemptuously flung aside as relics of a rude barbarism. The contempt shown to the language of the defeated race quite destroyed the impulse to English translation, and the Norman clergy had no sympathy with the desire for spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures among the people, so that for centuries those Scriptures remained in England a "spring ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... with the lightest of light banter; when Smedley hung back, Tyson lured him on with some artful feint; when Smedley thrust, Tyson dodged. Finally, when Smedley, so to speak, drew up all his facts and figures in the form of a hollow square, Tyson charged with magnificent contempt of danger. No doubt Tyson's method was extremely amusing and effective, and his sparkling periods proved the enemy's dullness up to the hilt; unfortunately, the prosy but responsible representations of Smedley had ...

— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

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