contemn

• The parallel, he ventures to assert might be drawn out to a far greater extent, &c 34] Conformably to this plan, the first proselytisers in Germany and the North were often reduced (we are told) to substituting the name of Christ and the saints for those of Odin and the gods in the toasts drunk at their bacchanalian festivals The extent of the credit and practice of witchcraft under the Church triumphant is evident from the numerous decrees and anathemas of the Church in council, which, while oftener treating it as a dread reality, has sometimes ventured to contemn or to affect to contemn it as imposture and delusion. —  The Superstitions of Witchcraft
• The last of these the wise man will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his freedom. —  A Short History of Greek Philosophy
• We contemn, we revile interest_, that is to say, the good and the useful, (for if all men are interested in an object, how can this object be other than good in itself?) —  Sophisms of the Protectionists
• That she does not contemn ornament, is shown by her one small golden ear-ring, long since divorced from its mate, and the devout faith which glows in her bosom is symbolized by the little silver image of our lady, slung from her neck by a silken cord, spun by her own silk worms, and twisted by her own hands. —  The Actress in High Life An Episode in Winter Quarters
• We contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. —  Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context