INSULTING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Insulting

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/ɪnsˈəltɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Insult v. t. (past & past part. insulted; pres. part. insulting)

To leap or trample upon; to make a sudden onset upon. (Obs.)

To treat with abuse, insolence, indignity, or contempt, by word or action; to abuse; as, to call a man a coward or a liar, or to sneer at him, is to insult him.

Insult v. i.

To leap or jump. "Give me thy knife, I will insult on him." "Like the frogs in the apologue, insulting upon their wooden king."

To behave with insolence; to exult. (Archaic) "The lion being dead, even hares insult." "An unwillingness to insult over their helpless fatuity."

adjective

Insulting adj. Containing, or characterized by, insult or abuse; tending to insult or affront; as, insulting language, treatment, etc.

Synonyms: Insolent; impertinent; saucy; rude; abusive; contemptuous. See Insolent.

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Etymology of 'Insulting'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Insulting" Quotes from Famous Books

... is according to a word's present signification that we must apply it now. It would be no excuse, having applied an insulting epithet to any, if we should afterwards plead that, tried by its etymology and primary usage, it had nothing offensive or insulting about it; although indeed Swift assures us that in his time such ...

— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... East, but probably they are of the same stock as the Shans and Burmese. Even their proper appellation is in doubt. The Chinese call them Lolos, which means simply "barbarians" or "wild men." By the people themselves the term is regarded as insulting, and one should avoid using it before them; but they are not agreed among themselves on a common name, and use ordinarily local ...

— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... Swift's mean character of Flimnap, the Lilliputian Prime Minister, stung badly: "With what Indignation must every one that has had the Honour to be admitted to this Great Man, review the Doctor's charging him with being morose" (p. 15). He counters Swift's insulting reduction of the Great Man to a petty little man with an egregiously fulsome panegyric that magnifies the virtues of Sir Robert's public and private character, and concludes with abuse of Swift's character as an Irish dean ...

— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous

... been checked for their open insulting religion in this manner by several good people of every persuasion, and that, and the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry ...

— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... Ishmael; but let me assure you that I did not need to be told of them. Do you remember the conversation we had upon the subject years ago? It was the morning after the school party when that miserable craven, Alfred Burghe, disgraced himself by insulting you. You said, Ishmael, 'My mother was a pure and honorable woman! Oh, believe it!' I did believe it then, Ishmael; for your words and tones and manner carried irresistible conviction to my mind. And every ...

— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

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