Search the Dictionary

A person at whom ridicule, jest, or contempt is directed; as, the butt of the company. I played a sentence or two at my butt, which I thought very smart. Addison.

The object of a contemptuous saying. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen. Ps. xliv. 14

age to the crop. -- Cabbage head, the compact head formed by the leaves of a cabbage; -- contemptuously or humorously, and colloquially, a very stupid and silly person; a numskull. -- Cabbage palmetto, a species of palm tree (Sabal Palmetto) found along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. -- Cabbage rose (Bot.…

invite to come together; as, to call in neighbors. -- To call (any one) names, to apply contemptuous names (to any one). -- To call off, to summon away; to divert; as, to call off the attention; to call off workmen from their employment. -- To call out. (a) To summon to fight; to challenge. (b) To summon into servi…

The living body; -- now commonly used in contempt or ridicule. "To pamper his own carcass." South. Lovely her face; was ne'er so fair a creature. For earthly carcass had a heavenly feature. Oldham.

An adventurer; -- a term of contempt for a Northern man seeking private gain or political advancement in the southern part of the United States after the Civil War (1865). [U. S.]

A contemptible or worthless person; -- a term of reproach. [Obs.] "Old feeble carrions." Shak.

Anything dried up, withered, or without flavor; -- used contemptuously.

A citizen; an inhabitant of a city; a pert townsman; -- used contemptuously. "Insulted as a cit". Johnson Which past endurance sting the tender cit. Emerson.

ons; esp., a body of persons united by some common interest or pursuit; -- sometimes used contemptuously. Partidge and the rest of his clan may hoot me. Smolett. The whole clan of the enlightened among us. Burke.

To express contempt or derision. [Obs.] Lam. ii. 15. To clap hold of, to seize roughly or quickly. -- To clap up. (a) To imprison hastily or without due formality. (b) To make or contrive hastily. [Obs.] "Was ever match clapped up so suddenly" Shak.

A native or resident of the city of London; -- used contemptuosly. A cockney in a rural village was stared at as much as if he had entered a kraal of Hottentots. Macaulay.

A fellow; -- in contempt. [Obs.] Shak.

Pertaining to a Presbyterian consistory; -- a contemptuous term of 17th century controversy. You fall next on the consistorian schismatics; for so you call Presbyterians. Milton.

enterprise; stability; fidelity. A fellow of plain unoined constancy. Shak. Constancy and contempt of danger. Prescott.

To view or treat with contempt, as mean and despicable; to reject with disdain; to despise; to scorn. Thy pompous delicacies I contemn. Milton. One who contemned divine and human laws. Dryden.

Contemptuously. [R.]

A willful contempt of, and disobedience to, any lawful summons, or to the rules and orders of court, as a refusal to appear in court when legally summoned.

Exhibiting contumely; rudely contemptuous; insolent; disdainful. Scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts. Shak. Curving a contumelious lip. Tennyson.

Rudeness compounded of haughtiness and contempt; scornful insolence; despiteful treatment; disdain; contemptuousness in act or speech; disgrace. The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely. Shak. Nothing aggravates tyranny so much as contumely. Burke.