prejudice

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
2. n. A preconceived preference or idea.
3. n. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions. See Synonyms at predilection.
4. n. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.
5. n. Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.
6. v. To cause (someone) to judge prematurely and irrationally. See Synonyms at bias.
7. v. To affect injuriously or detrimentally by a judgment or an act.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An opinion or decision formed without due examination of the facts or arguments which are necessary to a just and impartial determination; a prejudgment; also, a state of mind which forms or induces prejudgment; bias or leaning, favorable or unfavorable; prepossession: when used absolutely, generally with an unfavorable meaning: as, a man of many prejudices; we should clear our minds of prejudice.
2. n. Injury, as resulting from unfavorable prejudgment; detriment; hurt; damage.
3. To implant a prejudice in the mind of; bias; give an unfair bent to.
4. To create a prejudice against; injure by prejudice; hurt, impair, or damage in any way.
5. Synonyms To prepossess, warp.

Wiktionary

1. n. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge of the facts.
2. n. Any preconceived opinion or feeling, whether positive or negative.
3. n. An irrational hostile attitude, fear or hatred towards a particular group, race or religion.
4. n. The damage caused by such fear or hatred.
5. n. obsolete Knowledge formed in advance; foresight, presaging.
6. v. transitive To have a negative impact on someone's position, chances etc.
7. v. transitive To cause prejudice.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete Foresight.
2. n. An opinion or judgment formed without due examination; prejudgment; a leaning toward one side of a question from other considerations than those belonging to it; an unreasonable predilection for, or objection against, anything; especially, an opinion or leaning adverse to anything, without just grounds, or before sufficient knowledge.
3. n. (Law) A bias on the part of judge, juror, or witness which interferes with fairness of judgment.
4. n. Mischief; hurt; damage; injury; detriment.
5. v. To cause to have prejudice; to prepossess with opinions formed without due knowledge or examination; to bias the mind of, by hasty and incorrect notions; to give an unreasonable bent to, as to one side or the other of a cause.
6. v. To obstruct or injure by prejudices, or by previous bias of the mind; hence, generally, to hurt; to damage; to injure; to impair.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. influence (somebody's) opinion in advance
2. n. a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation
3. v. disadvantage by prejudice