DISAFFECTION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does disaffection mean? 

• DISAFFECTION (noun)
  The noun DISAFFECTION has 2 senses:

1. the feeling of being alienated from other people

2. disloyalty to the government or to established authority

  Familiarity information: DISAFFECTION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISAFFECTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The feeling of being alienated from other people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

alienation; disaffection; estrangement

Hypernyms ("disaffection" is a kind of...):

dislike (a feeling of aversion or antipathy)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "disaffection"):

isolation (a feeling of being disliked and alone)

Derivation:

disaffect (arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Disloyalty to the government or to established authority

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

the widespread disaffection of the troops

Hypernyms ("disaffection" is a kind of...):

disloyalty (the quality of being disloyal)

 Context examples 

And then, France had increased by leaps and bounds, reaching out to the north into Belgium and Holland, and to the south into Italy, whilst we were weakened by deep-lying disaffection among both Catholics and Presbyterians in Ireland.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Accordingly, the next time I had the honour to see our emperor, I desired his general license to wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could perceive, in a very cold manner; but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection; from which I am sure my heart was wholly free.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)