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Insulting or contemptuous action or speech; contemptuous merriment; derision; ridicule. The laughingstock of fortune's mockeries. Spenser.

Imitating, esp. in derision, or so as to cause derision; mimicking; derisive. Mocking bird (Zoöl.), a North American singing bird (Mimus polyglottos), remarkable for its exact imitations of the notes of other birds. Its back is gray; the tail and wings are blackish, with a white patch on each wing; the outer tail feath…

By way of derision; in a contemptuous or mocking manner.

A butt of sport; an object of derision. [R.]

A name given in contempt, derision, or sportive familiarity; a familiar or an opprobrious appellation.

A negro; -- in vulgar derision or depreciation.

To make light of; to treat with derision or contempt, as if by saying pooh! pooh! [Colloq.] Thackeray.

the claws; -- with on or upon; as, a hawk pounces upon a chicken. Also used figuratively. Derision is never so agonizing as when it pounces on the wanderings of misguided sensibility. Jeffrey.

-- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See Friend, n., 4. Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fell down and lay…

An object of blame, censure, scorn, or derision. Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach. Neh. ii. 17.

r; disparagement by making a person an object of laughter; banter; -- a term lighter than derision. We have in great measure restricted the meaning of ridicule, which would properly extend over whole region of the ridiculous, -- the laughable, -- and we have narrowed it so that in common usage it mostly corresponds to…

Derision; ridicule; mockery; derisive or mocking expression of scorn, contempt, or reproach. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts. Shak.

An object of extreme disdain, contempt, or derision. Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Ps. xliv. 13. To think scorn, to regard as worthy of scorn or contempt; to disdain. "He thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone." Esther iii. 6. -- To laugh to s…

Reproach incurred or suffered; dishonor; ignominy; derision; contempt. Ye have borne the shame of the heathen. Ezek. xxxvi. 6. Honor and shame from no condition rise. Pope. And every woe a tear can claim Except an erring sister's shame. Byron.

animated courage. The Rhodians, seeing the enemy turn their backs, gave a great shout in derision. Knolles.

An object of derision; a laughingstock. And now am I their song. yea, I am their byword. Job xxx. 9.

A wide mouth; a mouth stretched in derision. Dryden.

Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth; derision. Then make sport at me; then let me be your jest.Shak.

One who gazes at the stars; an astrologer; sometimes, in derision or contempt, an astronomer.

Derision; mockery. [Obs.] Dr. H. More.