Word.ws English Dictionary

disdaine

disdaine is the obsolete spelling of disdain.

Meaning of disdain

Noun

disdain (uncountable)

  1. A feeling of contempt or scorn.
    • The cat viewed the cheap supermarket catfood with disdain and stalked away.
  2. (obsolete) That which is worthy to be disdained or regarded with contempt and aversion.
    • Most loathsom, filthy, foul, and full of vile Disdain.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  3. (obsolete) The state of being despised; shame.
    • The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun ; Exempt from envy , but not from disdainc. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...

See all 5 meanings of disdain

Forms of disdaine

third-person singular presentdisdaines
present participledisdaining
past participledisdained
pastdisdained

Questions about disdaine

What is disdaine the obsolete spelling of?
Disdaine is the obsolete spelling of disdain.

Words near disdaine in the dictionary

  1. Discworldian
  2. disczine
  3. disczines
  4. disdain
  5. disdainable
  6. disdaine
  7. disdained
  8. disdaineful
  9. disdainer
  10. disdainers
  11. disdaines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: disdaine (page history and authors); disdain (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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Cite this entry: “disdaine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/disdaine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.