Word.ws English Dictionary

look down one's nose

look down one's nose verb: to regard as inferior or distasteful; to hold in contempt.

Verb

look down one's nose (third-person singular simple present looks down one's nose, present participle looking down one's nose, simple past and past participle looked down one's nose)

  1. (idiomatic, usually) To regard as inferior or distasteful; to hold in contempt.
    • You look too high and mighty; customers would think you were looking down your nose at them.1940, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, The House of Lee, Kessinger, published 2005, →ISBN, page 98
    • The New York Daily News's Columnist John O'Donnell, a Taftman, looked down his nose at Eisenhower's campaign.1952 March 24, “The Press: Fried Crow, à la Mode”, in Time

Forms of look down one's nose

third-person singular presentlooks down one's nose
present participlelooking down one's nose
past participlelooked down one's nose
pastlooked down one's nose

Questions about look down one's nose

What does look down one's nose mean?
Look down one's nose means to regard as inferior or distasteful; to hold in contempt.
What part of speech is look down one's nose?
Look down one's nose is a verb.
What is the past tense of look down one's nose?
The past tense of look down one's nose is looked down one's nose.

Words near look down one's nose in the dictionary

  1. look daggers
  2. look dev
  3. look development
  4. look down
  5. look down on
  6. look down one's nose
  7. look down upon
  8. look for
  9. look for a dog to kick
  10. look for number one
  11. look for trouble

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: look down one's nose (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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