Despise

How to spell despise

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce despise

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does despise mean?

1. verbTo feel a deep dislike or contempt for someone or something, regarding them as worthless.

Despise in a sentence

• Many workers despise the long, pointless meetings that fill their week.

• She came to despise the landlord who ignored every repair request.

Where does despise come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin despicere, meaning literally 'to look down on', formed from de-, meaning 'down', and specere, meaning 'to look' or 'to see'. From the physical idea of casting your eyes downward came the figurative sense of regarding someone or something as beneath you, that is, worthless or contemptible. English took the word in the 1200s and 1300s through Old French despire, whose stem despis- (seen in forms like despisant) shaped the English spelling. The very same specere root sits inside a family of familiar relatives such as 'spectator', 'inspect', and the closely linked 'despicable', all turning on the idea of looking. The spelling trap is the ending: it is spelled with an s, not a z, even though it sounds like 'despize'.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• -spise (from Latin specere: to look) = to look down on