How to use belittle in a sentence

13 example sentences · verb

Belittle means to disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something. Example: “Don't belittle your colleagues.”

Examples of belittle by meaning

verbTo disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.

Don't belittle your colleagues.
An essential part of any German campaign is obviously the efficiency of its lines of communication and therefore it is dangerous to belittle our enemy's strength in this direction.1941 March, “Notes and News: Underestimating the Enemy's Strength”, in Railway Magazine, page 129
Under the rules as understood by the New York Times, the West is free to mock and belittle its Judeo-Christian inheritance, and, likewise, the Muslim world is free to mock and belittle the West's Judeo-Christian inheritance.2006, Mark Steyn, chapter 9, in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, →ISBN, page 201

verbTo make small.

Now, the big blue space of river and sky belittled him, ulled him back into bewildered childhood.2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 357

More sentences with belittle

By pretending to be less than they know they are, they prevent being belittled by other people.2016, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Peter Geschiere, Evelien Tonkens, The Culturalization of Citizenship: Belonging and Polarization in a…. From the entry self-abasement
The students here mock and belittle the Campus Safety officers, who are really just good, different guys.2016, September Vaudrey, Colors of Goodbye: A Memoir of Holding On, Letting Go, and Reclaiming Joy in the Wake of Loss, Tyndale House…. From the entry Dwight Schrute
In the West, The Sporting News belittled stars like Kelly and McCormick as incorrigible lushers.1966, David Quentin Voigt, American Baseball: From Gentleman's Sport to the Commissioner System. From the entry lusher
"Without in any way wishing to belittle Zeebrugge," wrote Sir Charles, "one should now talk of St.1947, C.E. Lucas Phillips, quoting Sir Charles Forbes, The Greatest Raid of All, London: Heineman, published 1958, page 13. From the entry Zeebrugge
But to call a group of researchers postfeminist without exploring what exactly that means belittles both feminists and postfeminists alike.2009 February 8, “What Do Women Want?”, in New York Times. From the entry postfeminist
Our modern governors (even the current governoress) do not deserve to be belittled as some sort of “gubers.”1997 December 14, Frank G. Logan, “‘Gubernatorial’ is a wacky thing to call a governor”, in Home News Tribune, page I1, column 4. From the entry governoress
She felt belittled standing on line.1926 May, B. Beatrice Lubitz, “The Understudy […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LXXXVII, number 4, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew]…. From the entry daffodilly
That is, in both subtle and blatant ways, utterances report, assert, confirm, claim, doubt, deny, imply, suggest, hint, request, command, forbid, humorize, belittle, pronounce, decree, and so on.2016 December 8, Robert W. Schrauf, Mixed Methods: Interviews, Surveys, and Cross-Cultural Comparisons, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN. From the entry humorize
But when questioned as to the How? of this splendid proposal, they either belittle the questioner or resort to some vague owlism about the "womb of time."1915, Benedict Elder, A Study in Socialism, page 274. From the entry owlism

Meaning of belittle

verb To disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.
verb To make small.

Full definition of belittle

Questions about belittle in a sentence

How do you use belittle in a sentence?: Belittle is used as a verb. For example: “Don't belittle your colleagues.”
What is a short sentence with belittle?: “Don't belittle your colleagues.”
What does belittle mean?: Belittle means to disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.

Adapted from Wiktionary: belittle (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use belittle in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/belittle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.