Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The process or condition of worsening or degenerating.
- n. Linguistics The process by which the meaning of a word becomes negative or less elevated over a period of time, as silly, which formerly meant "deserving sympathy, helpless or simple,” has come to mean "showing a lack of good sense, frivolous.”
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Deterioration; a becoming worse: specifically used in Scots law.
- n. Depreciation; a lowering or deterioration of sense in a word.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- From Latin peior ("worse") (Wiktionary)
- Medieval Latin pēiōrātiō, pēiōrātiōn-, from Late Latin pēiōrātus, past participle of pēiōrāre, to make worse, from Latin pēior, worse; see ped- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Crafty once meant powerful, and cunning meant knowledgeable; each has gradually taken on negative connotations (this is called pejoration).”
“In the United Kingdom the word is still often used in this sense, but it later underwent pejoration.”
“This is a customary Orthodox conclusion, and I mean no pejoration here.”
“I don't really care whose "fault" the pejoration may be, I just stay away.”
“Although many articles, theoretical essays, and books have been written about metaphors, little effort has been made to investigate them systematically: as all of language is itself a metaphor (unless one believes in logomancy), one is continually confronted in the compilation of an ordinary dictionary with examples of semantic and linguistic changes (as well as amelioration, pejoration, etc.) that are tantamount to shifts of meaning that, loosely, could be said to be metaphoric.”
“Terms such as toilet and lavatory have, like privy, undergone pejoration over the years (that is, their meanings have acquired depreciatory connotations).”
“My own observation is that Informal might be undergoing its own round of pejoration -- these things sometimes go in cycles -- and, in a reference book I recently completed, which will be published by Oxford University Press in the autumn of 1991, I have chosen to return to Colloq.”
“Other, more objective treatises have been more likely to use a variety of terms with less cumulatively pejorative force -- cumulatively, because a term used once may carry only slight negative connotation but, used frequently, can create a considerable sense of pejoration in the mind of the reader.”
“The Norsemen were apparently as sexist as we are: all of the following, flag, giglet, gimmer, skit, and slattern generally mean ` low, contemptible woman '; only may ` maiden' has survived with specific reference to women without pejoration.”
“Other words without necessary pejoration: fellow, literally ` fee-layer '; guest, replacing OE g (i) est; and ombudsman.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pejoration’.
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JesusIsLord's Words
debauchery, plethora, wiki, numinous, wormwood, scribe, gelded, mithridate, orthogonal, jaculiferous, jaculate, jactitation and 415 more...
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Real words that I love
Words that make me happy in my pants AND have a place in the dictionary.
enervate, efficacious, basilisk, minotaur, elfin, elephantine, schadenfreude, enigma, emasculate, acidic, appalling, ridiculous and 102 more...
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wickedwitch's list
lll
alit, plinth, eclat, diaphanous, portico, nival, daedal, apse, fossa, pellet, avail, midge and 143 more...
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FTL
Words listed first by me that don't belong in any other list.
licit, precis, mnemosyne, badinage, mariposa, lepidoptera, coruscation, poignant, meme, oxymoron, xenophobia, asterism and 128 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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EricMinton's Favorite Words
This list includes some of my favorite words, graded by aroma, texture and mouthfeel.
comprise, elaborate, crystalline, transient, vitality, radiance, chromatic, smolder, coruscate, coarsen, artisan, plumage and 64 more...
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plumpesDenken's Words
refulgent, casuistry, scrofulous, syllogism, peristaltic, oleaginously, paratactic, pejoration, quietus, ingeminated, postlapsarian, indurated and 24 more...
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First List
captious, travesty, asinine, digress, superfluous, inordinate, abundant, pejorative, pejoration, malevolent, inherent, deliberate and 27 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pejoration.
plumpesdenken transform all idiomatic expressions in which 'well', 'good', and the like feature to pejorate them: 'that will do just as badly', 'for bad and all', and so forth. Casanova, Samuel Beckett Jan 6, 2007