Word.ws English Dictionary

despect

Syllables: de·spect/dɪˈspɛkt/

despect noun: contempt, derision.

Noun

despect (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Contempt, derision.
    • In 488 A.D. the then very young, energetic, clever and deceitful king Kavadh succeeded to the throne. The rule was actually in the hands of the most powerful nobleman, Sokhra of the Karen family, who had won fame in the war against the Huns. Sokhra treated the young king with despect as a boy. The...1960, New Orient, Prague: Czechoslovak Society for Eastern Studies, →OCLC, page 24
    • The majority of the most famous botanists of the 17th century raised their eyebrows in despect of this hypothesis of sex in plants as a new chimera and a ridiculous mental abortion of some persons who wanted to impress and delude the learned world.1991, Chr[istian] Gorm Tortzen, quoting Johan Gustaf Wahlbom, “Male and Female in Peripatetic Botany”, in Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue Danoise de Philologie et d'Histoire, volume XLII, Copenhagen...

Verb

despect (third-person singular simple present despects, present participle despecting, simple past and past participle despected)

  1. (archaic) To hold in contempt, to despise, to look down on, to scorn.
    • [Act II, scene ii, page 72] Nay, but with patience, Sir, we that are Officers / Muſt 'quire the ſpeciall markes, and all the tokens / Of the deſpected parties, or perhaps – elſe, / Be nere the nere of our purpoſe in 'prehending 'hem.
      [Act III, scene i, page 79] Faith Goſſip Turfe, you have, you...c. 1633, Ben Jonson, A Tale of a Tub. A Comedy Composed by Ben: Iohnson. … London, Printed M.DC.XL [1640], in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. Containing these Playes, viz. 1...
    • The holy Logos, condeſcending to aſſume the fleſh, voluntarily ſo diveſted himſelf of all apparent dignity, that he was therein conſidered as a meer man, incomparably inferior to, and distinct from, the prieſt offering him; and hence the features of correlation in them became indeed ſo effaced...1790, [anonymous; attributed to James Stonhouse], “[The Spirit of Jesus Christ the Melchisedecal Priest, evinced from […]] A View of the priestly office”, in Apostolical Conceptions of God, Being the...

Antonyms of despect

Forms of despect

third-person singular presentdespects
present participledespecting
past participledespected
pastdespected

Origin of despect

From Middle English despect (“contempt, spite”), from Latin dēspectus (“a looking down upon, contempt”), from dēspicere (“to look down upon, despise, scorn”), from dē (“down”) + specere (“to look at, behold”), equivalent to de- + -spect.

Words that rhyme with despect

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about despect

What does despect mean?
Despect means contempt, derision.
What part of speech is despect?
Despect can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce despect?
Despect is pronounced /dɪˈspɛkt/ (UK).

Words near despect in the dictionary

  1. despeckled
  2. despeckler
  3. despecklers
  4. despeckles
  5. despeckling
  6. despect
  7. despected
  8. despecting
  9. despection
  10. despective
  11. despectives

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: despect (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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