DESPISE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does despise mean? 

• DESPISE (verb)
  The verb DESPISE has 1 sense:

1. look down on with disdain

  Familiarity information: DESPISE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESPISE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they despise    ... he / she / it despises   
Past simple: despised   
Past participle: despised   
-ing form: despising   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Look down on with disdain

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

contemn; despise; disdain; scorn

Context example:

The professor scorns the students who don't catch on immediately

Hypernyms (to "despise" is one way to...):

detest; hate (dislike intensely; feel antipathy or aversion towards)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "despise"):

look down on (regard with contempt)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot despise Sue

Derivation:

despisal; despising (a feeling of scornful hatred)

 Context examples 

I despised them, to a man.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not particularly despise it.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Pride forbid, and whenever the longing grew very strong, he fortified his resolution by repeating the words that had made the deepest impression—I despise you.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can offer.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised, every country must be equally horrible.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I was half beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Dummling, and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)