Disrespect

How to spell disrespect

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disrespect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disrespect mean?

1. nounA lack of courtesy, regard, or esteem shown towards someone or something.
2. verbTo treat someone or something with a lack of courtesy or regard.

Disrespect in a sentence

• noun

  His constant interruptions showed real disrespect for the chair.

• verb

  He would never knowingly disrespect the customs of another country.

• noun

  Talking over a colleague in the meeting was taken as a sign of disrespect.

• verb

  To ignore the safety rules is to disrespect everyone working on the site.

Where does disrespect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'respect', which English took from the Latin respectus, the noun formed from respicere, meaning literally 'to look back at' or 'to regard'. That Latin verb joined re- ('back') to specere ('to look'), so to respect someone was originally to turn and look at them again, to give them a second, considering glance. The negative prefix dis-, meaning 'not' or 'the opposite of', was attached in English in the early 1600s to produce 'disrespect', first as a noun for a lack of regard and soon afterwards as a verb. The same spect root for looking survives in a crowd of familiar words such as 'inspect', 'spectator' and 'spectacle', which is a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled spect, not 'spec' or 'spek'. Because the word simply stacks the recognisable pieces dis + re + spect, its spelling is more regular than its tricky pronunciation might suggest.

How the word is built

• dis- (not, opposite of)
• re- (back, again)
• spect (look, from Latin specere 'to look at')