How to Use disdain in a Sentence

disdain

1 of 2 noun
  • I have a healthy disdain for companies that mistreat their workers.
  • He regarded their proposal with disdain.
  • But, again, why the wave of disdain in the first place?
    Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 Sep. 2022
  • And the disdain for and ridicule of Utah from around the country lives on, too.
    Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 3 Nov. 2022
  • A president with open disdain for the courts and the press.
    Jonathan W. White, Smithsonian, 17 Mar. 2017
  • The bitterness and the disdain are gone from his voice.
    Robert King, Indianapolis Star, 9 Feb. 2018
  • But the best Krakauer also has a touch of disdain for the subject.
    Joseph Bien-Kahn, Outside Online, 30 Mar. 2018
  • The French rider waved his left arm in disdain and swerved back and forth across the road.
    orlandosentinel.com, 26 July 2019
  • To some, Musk’s apparent disdain for the city feels like salt in the wound.
    Trisha Thadani, Washington Post, 26 July 2023
  • The fact the question is no longer being met with disdain is progress.
    Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2022
  • The son of the rock legend took to Twitter to express his disdain.
    Marisa Whitaker, SPIN, 2 June 2022
  • Like many of Reed's columns over the years, his post on Hall was met with disdain.
    Hayes Gardner, The Courier-Journal, 5 Feb. 2022
  • Few items of clothing have been talked about over the last two decades with more disdain than the low-rise jean.
    Eliza Huber, refinery29.com, 10 Sep. 2021
  • The voice in press conferences is not an act of disdain for the media.
    The Enquirer, 7 Apr. 2022
  • Cuevas plays Àlex, a gym bunny out for a good time on the apps — a life the series in no way disdains.
    Jesse Green, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2024
  • The populist idea is disdain for restraint, even at the expense of virtue.
    Bret Stephens New York Times, Star Tribune, 18 Aug. 2020
  • Her disdain is crystal-clear—even when it's buried in synths.
    Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 Nov. 2018
  • Brown was open with his disdain for the owner's comments.
    Matt Young, Houston Chronicle, 15 Feb. 2018
  • The 74-year-old rock star has been vocal about his disdain for the president.
    Rasha Ali, USA TODAY, 5 July 2020
  • Murray expressed some disdain with his doubters on the show.
    Jeremy Cluff, The Arizona Republic, 18 Nov. 2020
  • Labrador hasn’t been shy about his disdain for ranked choice voting.
    Matt Vasilogambros, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Aug. 2023
  • The right’s disdain for both sides-ism continued through the Obama era.
    James Hohmann, Washington Post, 16 Aug. 2017
  • His disdain for the cold eliminates a lot of those cities anyway.
    Jeff Wilson, star-telegram, 8 June 2018
  • The man who pulled him down is hovering nearby, a look of disdain on his face.
    New York Times, 21 Sep. 2021
  • Anyone from the streets to the schoolyard can understand the disdain for that figure.
    Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 18 Jan. 2023
  • In our house, there was great disdain for wealth and arrogance.
    Marc Myers, WSJ, 6 Oct. 2020
  • And Biden isn't Clinton, dragged down by distrust and disdain.
    Naomi Lim, Washington Examiner, 1 Nov. 2020
  • The disdain is all gone, and in its place is a kind of honoring that verges on reverence.
    Daphne Merkin, The New Republic, 11 Aug. 2023
  • Whitley is too polite to respond with the classic teenage show of disdain: the eye roll.
    Dana O'Neil, chicagotribune.com, 27 June 2017
  • Rust penned his disdain for this year's budget wrangling in a blog post.
    Chris Mayhew, Cincinnati.com, 13 Apr. 2018
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disdain

2 of 2 verb
  • They disdained him for being weak.
  • She disdained to answer their questions.
  • While most birds peck at food right side up, the nuthatch disdains proper manners.
    Jerry Shnay, Daily Southtown, 11 June 2018
  • The Bible, in its reader-unfriendly way, disdains to tell us.
    James Parker, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2014
  • For botanist and writer Sandra Knapp, the approach was closer to disdain.
    Dominique Browning, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2022
  • Trump is often mocked as someone who likes to return to his own bed at night, who disdains long trips abroad.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 11 May 2018
  • The everyday life of the soul, the things that the big picture of history usually omits, or disdains.
    Rachel Donadio, New York Times, 20 May 2016
  • Trump and Bolton both appear to disdain alliances and many forms of diplomacy.
    Elizabeth Saunders, Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Some writers disdain the culture of the Internet; King is very much a product of it.
    Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2021
  • Please do not read this in any way to disdain the people commemorating the loss of Pearl Grover.
    cleveland, 26 Feb. 2022
  • In the long run, there’s less safety for everyone when the public and the police distrust and disdain each other.
    Caille Millner, SFChronicle.com, 24 Jan. 2020
  • Rudy Giuliani in 2008 disdained to campaign in the two states and put all his chips on Florida—and promptly lost his shirt.
    Gerard Baker, WSJ, 31 Jan. 2020
  • George Allen, the Redskins’ coach of the 1970s, disdained young players and happily dealt away many of his picks for veterans.
    New York Times, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Lenin and Stalin disdained their softness: the end always justified the means.
    Time, 24 Aug. 2023
  • Schemes were hatched in the repulsive latrines, where guards disdained to enter.
    New York Times, 21 Sep. 2019
  • The cards served the dual purpose of helping young pupils learn their letters — and disdain religion.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 19 July 2022
  • Sure, many people openly disdained Springer and his ilk, but the ratings didn't lie: People were watching.
    Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 27 Apr. 2023
  • Lugo, who is also 6-4 but with short hair, disdains Gsellman’s long locks.
    James Wagner, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2016
  • Adlon disdains cutesiness and avoids almost all of the genre’s familiar clichés.
    Willa Paskin, Slate Magazine, 13 Sep. 2017
  • There have been many other Ganny letters over the years, full of love, sometimes disdain, and always protective to the core.
    Southern Living, 24 Oct. 2017
  • Ms. Le Pen, the leader of the National Front party, has long disdained the euro as a threat to prosperity.
    Peter S. Goodman, New York Times, 24 Apr. 2017
  • Entirely self-made, Edison disdained those who fell on hard times.
    David Oshinsky, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2019
  • The titles leave little doubt about how much disdain the authors have for the schools meant to prepare future leaders in business.
    George Siedel, The Conversation, 27 June 2022
  • The key thing about these scams is that in both cases the snobby cultural elites who Trump professes to disdain didn’t lose anything.
    Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 18 Oct. 2018
  • Gunmakers were no longer avoiding the gun that many had once regarded as the kind of weapon that society would disdain.
    Todd C. Frankel, Shawn Boburg, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Alex Horton, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Mar. 2023
  • In my grandparents’ neighborhood, girls wear wigs and long black skirts, but Nagyi disdains them for their showiness.
    Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Spend hours learning a recipe your family will disdain.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 26 Feb. 2021
  • But seldom have critics so thoroughly disdained the events in Philadelphia as to call for a do-over.
    Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 13 Mar. 2017
  • There are all shades of comments, from effusive praise to disdain and, of course, some garden variety trolling.
    Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, 6 Aug. 2020
  • That, too, has been part of the fun of this Olympics, the giddy embrace of the theatricality and flamboyance that were formerly disdained or ridiculed.
    Guy Trebay, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'disdain.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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