familiarity breeds contempt
familiarity breeds contempt proverb: a prolonged closeness or exposure or a profound knowledge of someone or something often leads to diminished respect or appreciation.
Proverb
familiarity breeds contempt
- A prolonged closeness or exposure or a profound knowledge of someone or something often leads to diminished respect or appreciation.
- “[S]uffer [your children] not to carry themselves unreverently or contemptuously towards you [parents]; but to keep their distance. For too much familiarity breedeth contempt, and imboldeneth to disobedience.”1673, Richard Baxter, chapter X, in A Christian Directory, part II
- “For a person to read his own works over with any great delight, he ought first to forget that he ever wrote them. Familiarity naturally breeds contempt.”1822, William Hazlitt, chapter 1, in Table-Talk
familiarity breeds contempt meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Thai
familiarity breeds contempt in Hindi
- if you know someone very well, you stop respecting them
- घर की मुर्ग़ी दाल बराबर ghar kī murġī dāl barābar
familiarity breeds contempt in Urdu
- if you know someone very well, you stop respecting them
- گھر کی مرغی دال برابر ghar kī murġī dāl barābar
familiarity breeds contempt in Malayalam
- if you know someone very well, you stop respecting them
- മുറ്റത്തെ മുല്ലയ്ക്ക് മണമില്ല muṟṟatte mullaykkŭ maṇamilla
familiarity breeds contempt in Thai
- if you know someone very well, you stop respecting them
- เล่นกับหมาหมาเลียปาก เล่นกับสากสากต่อยหัว lên-gàp-mǎa-mǎa-liia-bpàak lên-gàp-sàak-sàak-dtɔ̀i-hǔua
More languagesFewer languages
- familiarity breeds contempt in Vietnamese
- bụt nhà không thiêng
Synonyms of familiarity breeds contempt
Questions about familiarity breeds contempt
- What does familiarity breeds contempt mean?
- Familiarity breeds contempt means a prolonged closeness or exposure or a profound knowledge of someone or something often leads to diminished respect or appreciation.
- What is familiarity breeds contempt in Hindi?
- Familiarity breeds contempt in Hindi is घर की मुर्ग़ी दाल बराबर (ghar kī murġī dāl barābar). See Familiarity breeds contempt meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is familiarity breeds contempt?
- Familiarity breeds contempt is a proverb.
Words near familiarity breeds contempt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: familiarity breeds contempt (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: “familiarity breeds contempt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/familiarity_breeds_contempt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.