Contumely

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkÉ’ntjuːmÉ™li/

Origin

From Old French contumelie (""), from Latin contumēlia ("insult"), perhaps from com- ("") + tumeō ("swell").

Full definition of contumely

Noun

1. Offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.
• Shakespeare Hamlet:For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely ....
• 1857, Anthony_Trollope, , Volume the Second, page 19 (ISBN 1857150570)She had been subjected to contumely and cross-questoning and ill-usage through the whole evening.
• 1914, Grace Livingston Hill, The Best Man:What scorn, what contumely, would be his!
• 1953, James Strachey, translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon Books, p. 178:If this picture of the two psychical agencies and their relation to the consciousness is accepted, there is a complete analogy in political life to the extraordinary affection which I felt in my dream for my friend R., who was treated with such contumely during the dream's interpretation.
• 1976, Robert Nye, Falstaff:I could think of no words adequate to the occasion. So I belched. Not out of contumely, you understand. It was a sympathetic belch, a belch of brotherhood.