CONTEMPTIBLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Contemptible

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kəntˈɛmptəbəl/ Listen

adjective

Contemptible adj.

Worthy of contempt; deserving of scorn or disdain; mean; vile; despicable. "The arguments of tyranny are ascontemptible as its force is dreadful."

Despised; scorned; neglected; abject.

Insolent; scornful; contemptuous. (Obs.) "If she should make tender of her love, 't is very possible he 'll scorn it; for the man... hath a contemptible spirit."

Synonyms: Despicable; abject; vile; mean; base; paltry; worthless; sorry; pitiful; scurrile. See Contemptuous. Contemptible, Despicable, Pitiful, Paltry. Despicable is stronger than contemptible, as despise is stronger than contemn. It implies keen disapprobation, with a mixture of anger. A man is despicable chiefly for low actions which mark his life, such as servility, baseness, or mean adulation. A man is contemptible for mean qualities which distinguish his character, especially those which show him to be weak, foolish, or worthless. Treachery is despicable, egotism is contemptible. Pitiful and paltry are applied to cases which are beneath anger, and are simply contemptible in a high degree.

See images of 'Contemptible'

Etymology of 'Contemptible'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books

... of the Garter reads more in the jewel on his collar than the George and Dragon of a public-house expresses to the host or to his customers. Thus, to the mean person the myth always meant little; to the noble person, much; and the greater their familiarity with it, the more contemptible it became to one, and the more sacred to the other; until vulgar commentators explained it entirely away, while Virgil made the crowning glory of his ...

— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... swine, or a much less voracious animal, be surveyed by a glutton; and how contemptible must the talents of other sensualists appear, when opposed, perhaps, to some of the lowest and meanest of brutes! but in conversation man stands alone, at least in this part of the creation; he leaves all others behind him at his first start, and the greater progress he makes the greater ...

— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... that the usual time for going to bed had passed. As the following day was a Sunday, he was satisfied. They generally had quiet evenings then and there would be no interruptions to the story. Bruno, too, had now calmed down. It had softened him that his mother had found the Knippel boys' behaviour contemptible and that she had not excused them in the least. He might have told the Rector about it, but such accusations he despised. He felt quite appeased since his mother had shared his indignation and knew about the matter. Soon the house lay peacefully slumbering under ...

— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri

... Did he see in her only a willing accomplice to her father's money-making schemes? The one perhaps who spent the gains heartlessly and carelessly elsewhere? Beside those settlers' wives he had said were heroines, was she but an idle, contemptible, useless heiress? She spurred her horse on, letting her thoughts run away with her, unwilling that he should overtake her until she had got herself well in hand; and Carew followed behind, feeling again that sense ...

— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... worthless and contemptible if its men cease to work hard and, at need, to fight hard; and if its women cease to breed freely. If the best classes do not reproduce themselves the nation ...

— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

More quotes...