belittle
UK/bɪˈlɪt.əl/
belittle verb: to disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.
Verb
belittle (third-person singular simple present belittles, present participle belittling, simple past and past participle belittled)
- To disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.
- Don't belittle your colleagues.
- An essential part of any German campaign is obviously the efficiency of its lines of communication and therefore it is dangerous to belittle our enemy's strength in this direction.1941 March, “Notes and News: Underestimating the Enemy's Strength”, in Railway Magazine, page 129
- Synonyms:
- understate, make light of, denigrate, degrade, deprecate, disparage, downplay, play down, trivialize, bagatellize
- Antonyms:
- big up, exaggerate, cut it fat, hyperbolize, overcharge, overdo, overemphasize, overstate, play up, stretch
- To make small.
- Now, the big blue space of river and sky belittled him, ulled him back into bewildered childhood.2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 357
belittle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
belittle in Tamil
- சிறுமைப்படுத்து
belittle in Urdu
- بےعزتی کرنا, ہیچ کرنا
belittle in Bengali
- খাটো করা, তুচ্ছজ্ঞান করা, অবজ্ঞা করা
belittle in Malayalam
- to knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is
- ഇകഴ്ത്തുക ikaḻttuka, കൊച്ചാക്കുക koccākkuka
More languagesFewer languages
- belittle in Kannada
- ಕಡೆಗಣಿಸು, ಅಲಕ್ಷಿಸು, ಗಮನಕೊಡದಿರು, ಉಪೇಕ್ಷಿಸು
- belittle in Arabic
- صَغَّرَ ṣaḡḡara, اِحْتَقَرَ iḥtaqara
Examples of belittle in a sentence
- By pretending to be less than they know they are, they prevent being belittled by other people.
- The students here mock and belittle the Campus Safety officers, who are really just good, different guys.
- In the West, The Sporting News belittled stars like Kelly and McCormick as incorrigible lushers.
Synonyms of belittle
- understate
- make light of
- denigrate
- degrade
- deprecate
- disparage
- downplay
- play down
- trivialize
- bagatellize
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
1 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of belittle
| third-person singular present | belittles |
|---|---|
| present participle | belittling |
| past participle | belittled |
| past | belittled |
Origin of belittle
From be- + little. Coined by Thomas Jefferson in 1782.
Words formed from belittle
Words that rhyme with belittle
2 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about belittle
- What does belittle mean?
- Belittle means to disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.
- What is belittle in Tamil?
- Belittle in Tamil is சிறுமைப்படுத்து. See Belittle meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is belittle?
- Belittle is a verb.
- How do you pronounce belittle?
- Belittle is pronounced /bɪˈlɪt.əl/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of belittle?
- The past tense of belittle is belittled.
Words near belittle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: belittle (page history and authors); belittle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); belittle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); belittle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); belittle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-belittle.ogg, en-au-belittle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “belittle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belittle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.