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  1. reproach love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To express disapproval of, criticism of, or disappointment in (someone). See Synonyms at admonish.
  2. v. To bring shame upon; disgrace.
  3. n. Blame; rebuke.
  4. n. One that causes rebuke or blame.
  5. n. Disgrace; shame.
  6. idiom. beyond reproach So good as to preclude any possibility of criticism.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To charge with a fault; censure with severity; upbraid: now usually with a personal object.
  2. To disgrace.
  3. Synonyms Reprove, Rebuke, etc. (see censure); revile, vilify, accuse.
  4. n. The act of reproaching; a severe expression of censure or blame.
  5. n. An occasion of blame or censure, shame, infamy, or disgrace; also, the state of being subject to blame or censure; a state of disgrace.
  6. n. An object of contempt, scorn, or derision.
  7. n. Synonyms Monition, Reprehension, etc. (see admonition), blame, reviling, abuse, invective, vilification, upbraiding.
  8. n. Disrepute, discredit, dishonor, scandal, contumely.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A mild rebuke, or an implied criticism.
  2. n. Disgrace or shame.
  3. v. To criticize or rebuke someone.
  4. v. To disgrace, or bring shame upon someone.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. obsolete To come back to, or come home to, as a matter of blame; to bring shame or disgrace upon; to disgrace.
  2. v. To attribute blame to; to allege something disgraceful against; to charge with a fault; to censure severely or contemptuously; to upbraid.
  3. n. The act of reproaching; censure mingled with contempt; contumelious or opprobrious language toward any person; abusive reflections.
  4. n. A cause of blame or censure; shame; disgrace.
  5. n. An object of blame, censure, scorn, or derision.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. disgrace or shame
  2. n. a mild rebuke or criticism
  3. v. express criticism towards

Etymologies

  1. Old French reprochier (Modern reprocher). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English reprochen, from Old French reprochier, from Vulgar Latin *repropiāre : Latin re-, re- + Latin prope, near; see per1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “A measure of the Administration's responsiveness is that the NLRB launched its assault on Boeing after the BRT provided those examples, and President Obama has refused to say a word of reproach to the agency.”

    The Wall Street Journal: The NLRB Fear Factor

  • “She looked at him in reproach so deep that the last vestige of the terror of death was gone from her eyes.”

    THE KANAKA SURF

  • “My sense, however, is that the Pennsylvanian William Findley spoke for many others in 1796 when he said that the people who raised objections to the Constitution during the ratification struggle were “called Anti-federalists, as a name of reproach,” and then added, “I do, and always did, treat the appellation with contempt.””

    Simon & Schuster: Ratification

  • “Why anybody would vote for people who want to extend government's control to be able to do this kind of thing without reproach is beyond me.”

    Sound Politics: Absence of Justice

  • “Not a word of reproach was said when Ali returned to the ring against Quarry and Bonavena, though the Messenger had inveighed against the evils of sports.”

    Simon & Schuster: Sound and Fury

  • “It was, as the Oxford English Dictionary later concluded, “essentially a term of reproach.””

    Simon & Schuster: No Uncertain Terms

  • “First, we must offer to our people in Quebec a party which is really representative of all segments of the population, and whose methods and functioning are absolutely beyond reproach from a democratic point of view.”

    Quebec Update

  • “Mature in virtuosity -- the modern virtuosity which goes so far beyond the mere technical mastery that once made the term a reproach -- though young in years, Jascha Heifetz, when one makes his acquaintance "off-stage," seems singularly modest about the great gifts which have brought him international fame.”

    Violin Mastery Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers

  • “She was like the woman in Scripture whose reproach is taken away, and who becomes a joyful mother of children when all hope is over.”

    Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago

  • “He was ignorant of its implacable determination like every other man guileless of complicity with it, and a premature radical policy would have subjected him instantly, to the reproach from a vast majority of his countrymen, of stimulating an undeveloped”

    Eulogy of Abraham Lincoln

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Lists

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Comments

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  • dailyword Holmes would do this to Watson sometimes when he thought Watson had put too much color and life into the write ups of their cases. Aug 9, 2012

  • asativum To proach again. Apr 26, 2008

  • sonofgroucho Something that I am not beyond! Apr 8, 2007

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‘reproach’ has been looked up 4670 times, loved by 10 people, added to 60 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 15.