Word.ws English Dictionary

contumely

/ˈkɒnt͡ʃuːməli/

contumely noun: offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.

Noun

contumely (countable and uncountable, plural contumelies)

  1. Offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.
    • For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, / The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [...]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • Think of the insults, wrongs, and contumelies, / Ye bear from your proud lords—that your hard toil / Manures their fertile fields—you plow the earth, / You sow the corn, you reap the ripen'd harvest,— / They riot on the produce!— [...]1794, Robert Southey, Wat Tyler. A Dramatic Poem. In Three Acts, London: J[ohn] M‘Creery, […] for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, […], published 1817, →OCLC, Act I, page 21

contumely meaning in Tamil and Bengali

contumely in Tamil

செருக்கு நடத்தை, நொய்யசொல், தூசணம், செருக்குரை, இளி

contumely in Bengali

অপমান, গালি, ঘৃণাসূচক আচরণ

Examples of contumely in a sentence

  • She had been subjected to contumely and cross-questoning and ill-usage through the whole evening.1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, Volume the Second, →ISBN, page 19:
  • What scorn, what contumely, would be his!1914, Grace Livingston Hill, The Best Man:
  • ignoring the outcry, Harvey Warrender continued heatedly, 'If this government had been guilty of a breach of law, we would deserve the contumely of the House.'1962, Arthur Hailey, chapter 2, in In High Places:

Forms of contumely

pluralcontumelies

Origin of contumely

From Old French contumelie, from Latin contumēlia (“insult”), perhaps from com- + tumeō (“swell”).

Questions about contumely

What does contumely mean?
Contumely means offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.
What is contumely in Tamil?
Contumely in Tamil is செருக்கு நடத்தை, நொய்யசொல், தூசணம். See Contumely meaning in Tamil.
How do you use contumely in a sentence?
She had been subjected to contumely and cross-questoning and ill-usage through the whole evening.
What part of speech is contumely?
Contumely is a noun.
How do you pronounce contumely?
Contumely is pronounced /ˈkɒnt͡ʃuːməli/ (UK).
What is the plural of contumely?
The plural of contumely is contumelies.

Words near contumely in the dictionary

  1. contumatiously
  2. contumelies
  3. contumelious
  4. contumeliously
  5. contumeliousness
  6. contumely
  7. contund
  8. contunded
  9. contunding
  10. contunds
  11. conturb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contumely (page history and authors); contumely (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); contumely (Bengali 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-contumely.wav, En-us-contumely.wav.

Cite this entry: “contumely.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/contumely. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.