INSOLENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does insolent mean? 

• INSOLENT (adjective)
  The adjective INSOLENT has 2 senses:

1. marked by casual disrespect

2. unrestrained by convention or propriety

  Familiarity information: INSOLENT used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INSOLENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by casual disrespect

Synonyms:

flip; impudent; insolent; snotty-nosed

Context example:

the student was kept in for impudent behavior

Similar:

disrespectful (exhibiting lack of respect; rude and discourteous)

Derivation:

insolence (an offensive disrespectful impudent act)

insolence (the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unrestrained by convention or propriety

Synonyms:

audacious; bald-faced; barefaced; bodacious; brassy; brazen; brazen-faced; insolent

Context example:

the modern world with its quick material successes and insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress

Similar:

unashamed (used of persons or their behavior; feeling no shame)

Derivation:

insolence (the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties)

 Context examples 

I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

"Well?" said he, with a most insolent stare. "What now?"

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and, by consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel.

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

"I could certainly eat you alive," Martin said, in turn running insolent eyes over the other's disease-ravaged frame.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He had resumed his seat, the cigar still projecting at an insolent angle from the corner of his mouth.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“The insolent villain!” cried Pedro, glaring furiously after him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Well, he continued, looking round him with an insolent stare, I should vastly like to know who has had the insolence to give me so pressing an invitation to visit my own house, and what in the devil you mean by daring to trespass upon my grounds?

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)