Search the Dictionary

one out of a plan or purpose. -- To laugh to scorn, to deride; to treat with mockery, contempt, and scorn; to despise.

To look with a leer; to look askance with a suggestive expression, as of hatred, contempt, lust, etc. ; to cast a sidelong lustful or malign look. I will leer him as a'comes by. Shak. The priest, above his book, Leering at his neighbor's wife. Tennyson.

A priest; so called in contempt or ridicule.

or by pictures, effigies, or other signs, tending to expose another to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. Such publication is indictable at common law.

lving a libel; defamatory; containing that which exposes some person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule; as, a libelous pamphlet. [Written also libellous.] -- Li"bel*ous*ly, adv.

Excess of liberty; freedom abused, or used in contempt of law or decorum; disregard of law or propriety. License they mean when they cry liberty. Milton.

Tempting the appetite; dainty. "Lickerish baits, fit to insnare a brute." Milton.

sing. [Humorous] B. Jonson. -- Lip make a lip, to drop the under lip in sullenness or contempt. Shak. -- To shoot out the lip (Script.), to show contempt by protruding the lip.

ose which produce more than one at a birth, and also of human beings, in abhorrence or contempt. We might conceive that dogs were created blind, because we observe they were littered so with us. Sir T. Browne. The son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp hagborn. Shak.

Small in dignity, power, or importance; not great; insignificant; contemptible. When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes I Sam. xv. 17.

and looked black. Holinshed. -- To look down on or upon, to treat with indifference or contempt; to regard as an inferior; to despise. -- To look for. (a) To expect; as, to look for news by the arrival of a ship. "Look now for no enchanting voice." Milton. (b) To seek for; to search for; as, to look for lost money, or…

A little lord; a lordling; a lord, in contempt or ridicule. [Obs.] Swift.

Mean; contemptible; as, lousy knave. [Vulgar] Such lousy learning as this is. Bale.

ristic of, or like, one bred in a low and vulgar condition of life; mean dishonorable; contemptible; as, low-lived dishonesty.

ne; a clown. Lingering lubbers lose many a penny. Tusser. Land lubber, a name given in contempt by sailors to a person who lives on land. -- Lubber grasshopper (Zoöl.), a large, stout, clumsy grasshopper; esp., Brachystola magna, from the Rocky Mountain plains, and Romalea microptera, which is injurious to orange tree…

Adapted to excite laughter, without scorn or contempt; sportive. Broome. A chapter upon German rhetoric would be in the same ludicrous predicament as Van Troil's chapter on the snakes of Iceland, which delivers its business in one summary sentence, announcing, that snakes in Iceland -- there are none. De Quincey.…

A contemptuous name for Mohammed; hence, an evil spirit; a devil. [Obs.] Who's this, my mahound cousin Beau. & Fl.

the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land. 2 Kings xvii. 26. The temptations of prosperity insinuate themselves after a gentle, but very powerful,manner. Atterbury.

nner; imperiously. A lawless and rebellious man who held lands masterfully and in high contempt of the royal authority. Macaulay.

ing; in birds, the craw; -- now used only of the lower animals, exept humorously or in contempt. Chaucer. Bellies and maws of living creatures. Bacon.