Disdain

How to spell disdain

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce disdain

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disdain mean?

1. nounA feeling of contempt or scorn toward something or someone regarded as unworthy of respect.
2. verbTo regard or treat as beneath consideration or unworthy of one's attention.

Disdain in a sentence

• noun

  She looked at the cheap imitation with open disdain.

• verb

  Wealthy investors often disdain small, risky ventures.

• noun

  His disdain for office gossip was obvious to every colleague.

• verb

  He would disdain any task he considered beneath his rank.

Where does disdain come from?

Language of origin: French

Disdain travels into English from Old French desdeignier, which meant 'to scorn' or 'to think unworthy', and that verb grew out of the Latin dedignari, formed from the prefix de- (expressing the opposite of an action) and dignari 'to deem worthy', itself rooted in dignus, meaning 'worthy' or 'fitting'. So at its literal heart the word means to judge something as beneath your worth, to refuse to consider it dignified enough for your attention. English adopted it in the 1300s, first as a verb and soon after as a noun for the proud contempt felt toward something thought inferior. The same dignus root sits inside the everyday words 'dignity', 'deign', and 'indignant', which is a useful memory hook: the buried '-dain' really is the worthiness part. The shifting Latin di-/de- vowel is exactly why writers sometimes hesitate over the opening 'dis-', though the modern spelling has settled firmly on it.

How the word is built

• dis- (here from Latin dis-/de-, expressing reversal or negation)
• dain (root meaning 'deem worthy', from Latin dignus 'worthy')