Word.ws English Dictionary

distain

distain verb: to stain, discolour or tarnish. Also the misspelling of disdain.

Verb

distain (third-person singular simple present distains, present participle distaining, simple past and past participle distained)

  1. (rare) To stain, discolour or tarnish
    • Thence riſe the tears that ſo diſtaine my cheeks,
      Fearing his loue through my vnworthyneſſe.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...

Also used as

distain is also the misspelling of disdain.

Forms of distain

third-person singular presentdistains
present participledistaining
past participledistained
pastdistained

Origin of distain

From Old French desteindre.

Questions about distain

What does distain mean?
Distain means to stain, discolour or tarnish.
What part of speech is distain?
Distain is a verb.
What is the past tense of distain?
The past tense of distain is distained.

Words near distain in the dictionary

  1. distaffe
  2. distaffer
  3. distaffers
  4. distaffes
  5. distaffs
  6. distain
  7. distained
  8. distaining
  9. distains
  10. distal
  11. distal convoluted tubule

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: distain (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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