Despite

How to spell despite

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce despite

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does despite mean?

1. prepositionIn spite of; without being affected or prevented by something.

Despite in a sentence

• Despite the heavy rain, the outdoor wedding went ahead as planned.

• She finished the marathon despite a painful injury to her knee.

Where does despite come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English from Old French despit, which itself descended from the Latin despectus, meaning 'a looking down on' or 'contempt'. That Latin noun was the past participle of despicere, formed from de-, meaning 'down', and specere, meaning 'to look at'; so the literal sense was to look down upon something or someone. When it first entered English in the early 1300s it was a noun meaning scorn, contempt, or spite, and indeed our word 'spite' is simply a shortened form of this same despite. Over the following centuries the noun weakened into the familiar preposition we use today, which sets one fact against another, as in acting 'in despite of' an obstacle. The buried specere root, meaning 'to look', is the same one that gives us 'spectacle', 'inspect', and 'respect', which is a useful reminder of why the middle is spelled with that 'spit'.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• spit (from Latin specere, to look)
• -e