Word.ws English Dictionary

pejorative

/pɪˈd͡ʒɒɹətɪv/US/pɪˈd͡ʒoɹətɪv/

pejorative adjective: disparaging, belittling or derogatory.

Adjective

pejorative (comparative more pejorative, superlative most pejorative)

  1. Disparaging, belittling or derogatory.
    • These days, on platforms like X, slopulism is a pejorative label often applied to posts by politicians and pundits alike, anyone who shares out lowest-common-denominator ideas designed to appeal to loyal political bases.2026 February 13, Nathan Taylor Pemberton, “When Posting Becomes Its Own Style of Politics”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 Feb 2026

Noun

pejorative (plural pejoratives)

  1. A disparaging, belittling, or derogatory word or expression.
    • “Get away from me, freak.” “Actually, my designation is Logic-y. I take issue with the pejorative when I am simply a product of your self-inflicted bifurcation.”2023 October 12, Edgar Momplaisir, “A Few Badgeys More” (15:59 from the start), in Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4, episode 7, spoken by Logic-y (Jack McBrayer)
    Synonyms:
    dyslogism, dysphemism

pejorative meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

pejorative in Malayalam

disparaging, belittling or derogatory
അപകീർത്തികരമായ apakīṟttikaramāya

pejorative in Kannada

ತಿರಸ್ಕಾರದ, ನಿಕೃಷ್ಟವಾದ, ಹೀನಾರ್ಥಕ, ತುಚ್ಛಾರ್ಥಕ, ಕೆಟ್ಟ ಹುರುಳಿನ

Examples of pejorative in a sentence

  • Mutated contractions often form diminutive and pejorative terms, such as "Newfie" and "fundie".
  • We find tankies tend to use pejorative terms to describe other ideologies in a toxic manner.
  • Does it exist in a superposition of states, both positive and pejorative?

All 15 example sentences with pejorative

Synonyms of pejorative

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of pejorative

Forms of pejorative

Adjective
comparativemore pejorative
superlativemost pejorative
Noun
pluralpejoratives

Origin of pejorative

From Late Latin peiōrātus (“worsened”, past participle of peiōrāre (“worsen”), from Latin peior (“worse”)) + -ive. Compare French péjoratif (“depreciative, disparaging”). By surface analysis, pejorate + -ive.

Words formed from pejorative

Questions about pejorative

What does pejorative mean?
Pejorative means disparaging, belittling or derogatory.
What is pejorative in Malayalam?
Pejorative in Malayalam is അപകീർത്തികരമായ (apakīṟttikaramāya). See Pejorative meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is pejorative?
Pejorative can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce pejorative?
Pejorative is pronounced /pɪˈd͡ʒɒɹətɪv/ (UK).

Words near pejorative in the dictionary

  1. pejorating
  2. pejoration
  3. pejorationist
  4. pejorationists
  5. pejorations
  6. pejorative
  7. pejoratively
  8. pejorativeness
  9. pejoratives
  10. pejorativization
  11. pejorism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pejorative (page history and authors); pejorative (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-pejorative.wav.

Cite this entry: “pejorative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pejorative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.