Despised

How to spell despised

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce despised

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does despised mean?

1. verbRegarded someone or something with deep contempt or scorn.
2. adjectiveRegarded by many with contempt; widely scorned.

Despised in a sentence

• verb

  The manager despised any excuse for missing a deadline.

• adjective

  The despised landlord finally lost his licence after years of complaints.

• verb

  As a child she despised the long drive to her grandparents' house.

• adjective

  That despised practice of hidden fees was banned by the regulator.

Where does despised come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin despicere, which literally meant 'to look down on', formed from de- 'down' and specere 'to look', the same root that gives us 'spectacle' and 'inspect'. By looking down on something a person showed contempt for it, so the literal physical sense of gazing downward shifted into the moral sense of scorning. English took the word in through Old French despis-, the stem of despire, during the 1300s, and it settled as 'despise'. The past form 'despised' simply adds the regular -ed ending, though the soft s here sounds like a z, which is part of why writers hesitate over the spelling. Worth remembering that the opening syllable is de- (from Latin 'down'), not di-, since the idea is precisely that of looking down on.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• spis (from Latin specere/spicere: to look)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)