Derision

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Act of treating with disdain. countable, uncountable

    "There was just a touch of derision in the Don's voice and Hagen flushed."

  2. 2
    the act of deriding or treating with contempt wordnet
  3. 3
    Something to be derided; a laughing stock. countable, uncountable

    "Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place as companion was a sinecure and a derision […]"

  4. 4
    contemptuous laughter wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
arroganceaudacitybacktalkbanterbravadoburlesque

Example

More examples

"There are quite a few ways to express derision in Esperanto."

Etymology

From Old French derision, from Latin dērīsiōnem, accusative of dērīsiō, from dērīdēre ("to mock, to laugh at, to deride").

Related phrases

hold in derisionlaughing stock

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