Dishonour
//dɪzˈɒnəɹ// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Shame or disgrace. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK, countable, uncountable
"You have brought dishonour upon the family."
- 2 lacking honor or integrity wordnet
- 3 Lack of honour or integrity. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK, countable, uncountable
- 4 a state of shame or disgrace wordnet
- 5 Failure or refusal of the drawee or intended acceptor of a negotiable instrument, such as a bill of exchange or note, to accept it or, if it is accepted, to pay and retire it. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK, countable, uncountable
Verb
- 1 To bring disgrace upon someone or something; to shame. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK
"You have dishonoured the family."
- 2 refuse to accept wordnet
- 3 To refuse to accept something, such as a cheque; to not honor. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK
"disworshipping and dishonouring God"
- 4 bring shame or dishonor upon wordnet
- 5 To violate or rape. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New-Zealand, South-Africa, UK
"“My men, the schooner coming up on our weather quarter is a Portuguese pirate. His character is known; he scuttles all the ships he boards, dishonours the women, and murders the crew.”"
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- 6 force (someone) to have sex against their will wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"You wanted to avoid war at the price of dishonour."
Etymology
From Old French deshonor, equivalent to dis- + honour.
Related phrases
More for "dishonour"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.