What does "discountenance" mean?

Cold treatment; disapprobation.

What is a synonym for "discountenance"?

Common synonyms include: abash, abashment, baffle, balk, be against, be agin.

Pronounced //dɪsˈkaʊntənəns//.

//dɪsˈkaʊntənəns// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
Cold treatment; disapprobation. uncountable
"Highly tenacious of preserving over the mind of Sir Aubrey an undisputed sway, Lady De Brooke had seen with great reluctance the ascendency his grand-daughters were acquiring, which she artfully hoped to repress by throwing discountenance on the visits of their father,[…]"

Verb

1
To have an unfavorable opinion of; to deprecate or disapprove of. transitive
"A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot."
2
show disapproval by discouraging wordnet
3
To abash, embarrass or disconcert. transitive
"How would one look from his Majeſtick brow, / Seated as on the top of Vertues hill, / Diſcount'nance her deſpiſ'd, and put to rout / All her array, her female pride deject, / Or turn to reverent awe? […]"
4
look with disfavor on wordnet
5
To refuse countenance or support to; to discourage. transitive
"These were rejected by Parliament, which discountenanced the amalgamation of competing lines but gave broad approval in theory to end-on amalgamations."

"A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot."

From Middle French descontenancer (compare French décontenancer).

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