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Spurn

//spɝn// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun

1
An act of spurning; a scornful rejection.
2
A kick; a blow with the foot. archaic
"What defence can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn?"
3
Disdainful rejection; contemptuous treatment. obsolete
"The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes."
4
A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.

Verb

1
To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn. ambitransitive
"to spurn at your most royal image"
2
reject with contempt wordnet
3
To reject something by pushing it away with the foot. transitive
"Me thinks I ſee kings kneeling at his feet, And he with frowning browes and fiery lookes, Spurning their crownes from off their captiue heads."
4
To waste; fail to make the most of (an opportunity) transitive
"Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal."
5
To kick or toss up the heels. intransitive, obsolete
"oft' the ſudden Gale Ruffles the Tide, and ſhifts the dang'rous Sail, […] The drunken Chairman in the Kennel ſpurns, The Glaſſes ſhatters, and his Charge o'erturns."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English spurnen, spornen, from Old English spurnan (“to strike against, kick, spurn, reject; stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *spurnaną (“to tread, kick, knock out”), from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognate with Scots spurn (“to strike, push, kick”), German spornen (“to spur on”), Icelandic sporna, spyrna (“to kick”), Latin spernō (“despise, distain, scorn”). Related to spur and spread.

Etymology 2

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