Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To laugh at, speak of, or write about dismissively or contemptuously. synonym: ridicule.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To laugh at in contempt; turn to ridicule or make sport of; mock; treat with scorn by laughter.
  • Synonyms Ridicule, etc. (see taunt), banter, rally, jeer, gibe, scout, scoff at, insult.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To laugh at with contempt; to laugh to scorn; to turn to ridicule or make sport of; to mock; to scoff at.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To harshly mock; ridicule.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb treat or speak of with contempt

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin dērīdēre : dē-, de- + rīdēre, to laugh at.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin deridere ("to mock, laugh at"), from de- ("from, down from") + ridere ("to laugh").

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Examples

  • If you strove for it sincerely at any time, no matter how remote, you could never again deride it.

    The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

  • The fact that someone would see that as something to deride is beyond words

    Think Progress » 66. 2006

  • Defy the tempest & the storm deride is not in the original nor is it good. ποθος [19] is hardly fierce desire — & all such expressions of ram-cat raptures are bad. by the by she a dark lanthern might have deprived us of this poem. your storm is very good — zounds I sweat at the bare idea of the

    Letter 138 1795

  • All the other cable news netword deride John Stewart, but what they don't realize is that he is an incredibly intelligent person that has his finger on the pulse.

    BusinessWeek.com -- 2009

  • Is it that those faculty members "deride" the story while Huckabee finds it "compelling"?

    Archive 2007-12-01 Ann Althouse 2007

  • Is it that those faculty members "deride" the story while Huckabee finds it "compelling"?

    "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Ann Althouse 2007

  • Is it that those faculty members "deride" the story while Huckabee finds it "compelling"?

    "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Ann Althouse 2007

  • Ruin the economy through unregulated greed, then deride the poor guy who has to clean up the mess.

    Steele: Sanford, Ensign affairs 'old news, old school' 2009

  • While you cheer for one and deride the other watching the show, their minions are walking out of your back door with a wheel barrow full of cash.

    Poll: Will Obama visit help Corzine ? 2009

  • Conservatives often deride Obama over remarks he made at a presser in April of 2009, in which he said that he believes in American exceptionalism "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

    Nonstop idiocy about Obama and `American exceptionalism' Greg Sargent 2011

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  • Take down

    July 18, 2012