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Contemptible   /kəntˈɛmptəbəl/   Listen
adjective
Contemptible  adj.  
1.
Worthy of contempt; deserving of scorn or disdain; mean; vile; despicable. "The arguments of tyranny are ascontemptible as its force is dreadful."
2.
Despised; scorned; neglected; abject.
3.
Insolent; scornful; contemptuous. (Obs.) "If she should make tender of her love, 't is very possible he 'll scorn it; for the man... hath a contemptible spirit."
Synonyms: Despicable; abject; vile; mean; base; paltry; worthless; sorry; pitiful; scurrile. See Contemptuous. Contemptible, Despicable, Pitiful, Paltry. Despicable is stronger than contemptible, as despise is stronger than contemn. It implies keen disapprobation, with a mixture of anger. A man is despicable chiefly for low actions which mark his life, such as servility, baseness, or mean adulation. A man is contemptible for mean qualities which distinguish his character, especially those which show him to be weak, foolish, or worthless. Treachery is despicable, egotism is contemptible. Pitiful and paltry are applied to cases which are beneath anger, and are simply contemptible in a high degree.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books



... still rarer than is the love of Dupris and Bolingbroke. These sentiments proceed from an unknown cause. But you have brought me thus to consider love as a passion. Yes, indeed, it is the last of them all and the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfils nothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away the first. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, of ambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in them; these sentiments ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... of the sailor's business to take whatever food was put aboard for him. Running short of provisions was to them only an incident natural to the sailor's calling. This view had been handed down by successive generations of avaricious stoats, not the least prominent and contemptible of whom was Elizabeth, with her chilly heart, at one time receiving from Drake the spoils of his voyage in the Pelican; at another walking through the parks publicly with him, and listening with eager fascination to his stories of "amazing adventure," ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... bishopric to teach me but to be taught by me. In truth I do not understand what could be your Lordship's thought in discussing a matter so foreign to your profession; and it did not seem at all well to me, unless your Lordship regards me as so contemptible a person that I am not equal to this. Although humility is well in all, and particularly in bishops, it is not humility for the sheep to teach the shepherd; nor would it be considered well in me, and still less so in your Lordship, if ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... what did he do? His actions form one of the most incredible and, let it be said, contemptible ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... to him, and taken his share of the troubles, it would have been bad enough; but it was gradually dawning upon Dexter that the boy he had half-idolised for his cleverness and general knowledge was a contemptible, ill-humoured bully—a despicable young tyrant, ready to seize every ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn


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