Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use despise in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Despise means to regard with contempt or scorn. Example: “Katie despised video games because she saw them as a trashy, boring waste of time.”

Examples of despise by meaning

verbTo regard with contempt or scorn.

  • Katie despised video games because she saw them as a trashy, boring waste of time.
  • James still despises his brother for the time he pushed him out of a tree during their childhood.

More sentences with despise

  • They despise each other, but they are always civil in public.From the entry civil
  • To individuals who despise killings in any form, death penalty is undue punishment.From the entry undue
  • She realized to her horror that she had unwittingly helped those people she most despised.From the entry unwittingly
  • The dictator's cruelty made him the most despised person in the region.From the entry despised
  • I binge-played the sequel last month and now I despise it so much.From the entry binge-play
  • Many profess to despise what secretly they hunger after.From the entry profess
  • The little boy loved peas but despised spinach.From the entry despised
  • The populace despised their ignorant leader.From the entry populace
  • Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent free in your head.2014, Doris M. Arwine, Sensitive to Listen and Willing to Obey, page 126. From the entry live rent free in someone's head
  • I don't care for temples in the slightest, in fact I despise them.2014 July 10, joshb, “Historian: Rabbinical Judaism is a Roman anti-Jewish people sect.”, in soc.culture.jewish (Usenet). From the entry idiotery
  • Once lauded, then despised, then, at least in Bryant's case, lauded again, both manifested signs of regression.2012, Ellis Cashmore, Beyond Black: Celebrity and Race in Obama's America, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 9. From the entry embraceability
  • We learned to despise the 'Wood' family, that is, the empty seats.2012, Angela Carter, Wise Children, page 77. From the entry Wood family
  • Worse yet, they could be stuck raising offspring with a man they despise.2010, Phil Torcivia, Nick Street, Still a Nice Guy, Phil Torcivia, →ISBN. From the entry manizer
  • The yahooism he had always despised was suddenly yoked to an ideology he viewed as reckless.2007 April 29, James Traub, “Who Put the ‘Cold’ in Cold War?”, in New York Times. From the entry yahooism
  • He despised the museum and its goers for everything they didn’t know.2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections. From the entry goer
  • I despised writing for the first 33 years of my life.1998, Rick Howard, Jamie Lash, This Was Your Life!. From the entry salami technique
  • Hanging on to resentment is letting someone you despise live rent free in your head.1989, Yellowed Pages - Volumes 19-20, page 216. From the entry live rent free in someone's head
  • Alfonso despises Annetta, Annetta despises Alfonso, and they continue to court each other quarter-heartedly.1966, D. J. Enright, Conspirators and Poets, page 168. From the entry quarter-heartedly
  • Even the most despised Continental pocket-country is able to keep its food fresh and cool.1932 July 5, “Looking at the News”, in Daily Herald, number 5113, London, page 8. From the entry steak-and-kidney pie
  • She has not dressed, because she despises the futility of London.1931 October 8, Virginia Woolf, The Waves, new edition, London: The Hogarth Press, published 1960, →OCLC, page 85. From the entry dress
  • Val walked out behind his mother, chin squared, eyelids drooped, doing his level best to despise everybody.1920, John Galsworthy, “Dartie versus Dartie”, in In Chancery (The Forsyte Saga; 2), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, part II, page 186. From the entry level best
  • Even the common scold heartily despises the husband she can “hen peck.”1919, Minnie Bronson, The Woman Patriot - Issues 3-4, page 8. From the entry hen peck
  • Because she despised inwardly the coarsely working nature of the mistress.1915, D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, Vintage, published 2011, page 91. From the entry at outs
  • And she found that she was not wearing a despised muslin frock!1913, Eleanor Gates, The Poor Little Rich Girl. From the entry gingham
  • Love has a thousand voices, yet are they not lowly or despised.”1900 May, Ellen A. Smith, “The Price of an Inspiration”, in The Argosy, volume LXXI, London, →OCLC, page 67. From the entry kartoffel
  • He thinks Russia is still a superpower, not what he’s made it: a despised rogue state and Chinese client.2026 June 14, Simon Tisdall, “Russia is losing the war in Ukraine, and Putin is desperate. But that’s when he’s at his most dangerous”, in…. From the entry client
  • In short, despised by my own people.2018 Deadly Ploy, Book 3, page 130. From the entry rapeling
  • Far from it, in fact; Saxon is the most widely despised dialect in Germany, by a wide margin.2014, Gaston Dorren, Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe, →ISBN. From the entry Saxon
  • I hate him at this moment as he despises me.2013, Ana Locke, Behind Closed Doors. From the entry lustuous
  • The home was in Leatherhead, which Ximeneans would despise as a signal for L, but let's keep with the action.2012, David Astle, Puzzled: Secrets and clues from a life in words, →ISBN. From the entry Ximenean
  • But what if that bottle-feeder she had to despise couldn't feed her own baby for some reason and wanted to?2007, Kate Figes, The Big Fat Bitch Book, Hachette, →ISBN. From the entry bottle-feeder
  • I will be despised, and will be esteemed not.2000, Robert J. Walker, “Houston, We Have a Problem”, in The Plan of Salvation, Brushton, N.Y.: TEACH Services, Inc., →ISBN, page 22. From the entry grieves
  • Thanks, then, to white South Africans, who, before dumping Apartheid, were universally despised and proved instantly booable at the movies.1996, Marshall Julius, Action!: The Action Movie A-Z, page 2. From the entry booable
  • Gem of the Day: Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent free in your head.1990 March 8, Ann Landers [Eppie Lederer], “Breast cancer is in her family”, in Daily American, volume 62, number 210, Somerset, Pa., page…. From the entry live rent-free in someone's head
  • Even the toe dance, so much despised by Isadora Duncan and by the schools she inspired, is essentially creative, not athletic.1983, Roger Copeland, Marshall Cohen, What is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism, page 40. From the entry toe dance
  • George Orwell, for example, despised his waffliness.1973, Peter Coleman, “Not a man to go shooting tigers with”, in The Bulletin, volume 95, Sydney, N.S.W., →ISSN, page 43, column 3. From the entry waffliness
  • I can understand a man venerating it as a ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a rubbish-heap.1922, G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America. From the entry idolatrise
  • Why should we despise anything in the realm of Buddha?1907, Tada Kanai, “The World and How to Pass Through It”, in Arthur Lloyd, transl., Seven Buddhist Sermons. From the entry realm

Meaning of despise

  1. verb To regard with contempt or scorn.
  2. verb To disregard or ignore.

Full definition of despise

Questions about despise in a sentence

How do you use despise in a sentence?
Despise is used as a verb. For example: “Katie despised video games because she saw them as a trashy, boring waste of time.”
What is a short sentence with despise?
“The populace despised their ignorant leader.”
What does despise mean?
Despise means to regard with contempt or scorn.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: despise (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:

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