Disgust

How to spell disgust

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce disgust

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disgust mean?

1. nounA strong feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something offensive.
2. verbTo cause someone to feel revulsion or strong disapproval.

Disgust in a sentence

• noun

  She looked at the mouldy leftovers with obvious disgust.

• verb

  The filthy state of the kitchen will disgust any visitor.

• noun

  The manager could not hide his disgust at the sloppy report.

• verb

  Such dishonest behaviour can disgust even the most patient colleague.

Where does disgust come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travels back to the Latin gustus, which simply meant 'taste' or 'the act of tasting', the same root that gives us 'gusto' and 'gustatory'. Old French combined it with the reversing prefix des- to form desgouster, literally 'to put off the taste' or 'to spoil the appetite'. English adopted it in the late 1500s, first as a verb meaning to fill someone with revulsion, then as a noun for that strong feeling of distaste. The original idea was strikingly physical: something so unpleasant that it ruined your sense of taste, which is why the modern sense still carries that bodily, stomach-turning quality. The spelling keeps the single 's' of the prefix and a single 's' before the 't', so it is the 'gust' (taste) core, not a doubled letter, that anchors the word.

How the word is built

• dis- (reversal, away from)
• gust (taste, from Latin gustus)