English → Latin
“despise” in Latin
dēspiciōto look down upon; to disdain or despise; to look away, disregardcontemnōto scorn, despise, show contempt; to disparage, consider a person or thing as unimportant or of small value; to disregarspernōto move aside, push away; to sever, separate, remove; to despise, reject, scorn, spurnāspernorto cast off, turn away, avert, repel; to cast off, spurn, despise, disdain, scorn; to refuse, reject, declinefastīdiōto loathe, dislike, despise; to disdain, scornrevereorto stand in awe (of), regard, respect, honor, reverence, revere; to stand in fear (of); to be afraid, fearadmīrorTo admire or respect; To regard with wonder; To be surprised at; to be astonishedtimeōto fear, be afraid of, apprehend, be apprehensive of; to be afraid, to fear, to be apprehensivemorsdeath; corpse, dead body; annihilation
The English word despise itself goes back to Latin dē, through dēspiciō.
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
despise v.
despicere: despicatui habere (to look down upon; not to value, opposed to suspicere, revereri, admirari): contemnere: contemptui habere (to despise what one might be expected to fear; opposed to metuere, timere; e.g., mortem, pericula; but also auctoritates, consilium, Vid :.): spernere (to despise or hold cheap what one might be expected to desire; to reject with scorn; opposed to appetere, concupiscere; but also of holding a person cheap): aspernari (to reject with aversion; to utter the feeling implied in spernere): (The words are found in this connection and order.) contemnere ac despicere; despicere et contemnere; contemnere et pro nihilo ducere; despicere et pro nihilo putare; spernere et pro nihilo putare; spernere et repudiare: fastidire (to feel disgust against anything; to reject it from pride, etc): negligere (to disregard). (The words are found in this connection and order.) contemnere ac negligere: cf., temnere is poetical for contemnere; despicari, late and rare. Nobody despises himself, nemo umquam sui despiciens fuit: the consciousness of having despised the gods, spretorum deorum conscientia :to despise glory, gloriam repudiare or spernere; anybody’s favor, gratiam alicujus repudiare.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for despise?
- The usual Latin words for “despise” are dēspiciō, contemnō, spernō; also āspernor, fastīdiō, revereor. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.