Contumely

//ˈkɒnt͡ʃuːməli// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult. countable, uncountable

    "For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, / The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [...]"

  2. 2
    a rude expression intended to offend or hurt wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abuseabuseaffrontairsanimadversionarrogance

Example

More examples

"For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, / The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [...]"

Etymology

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

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.