Definitions

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

  • noun One who hates or mistrusts humankind.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hater of mankind; one who harbors dislike or distrust of human character or motives in general.

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

  • noun A hater of mankind; a misanthropist.

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

  • noun One who hates all mankind; one who hates the human race.

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

  • noun someone who dislikes people in general

Etymologies

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

[French, from Greek mīsanthrōpos, hating mankind : mīso-, miso- + anthrōpos, man.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek to hate + a man; compare French misanthrope and English miser.

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Examples

  • For his sin of sympathetic disengagement, this particular misanthrope is cut off from social sympathy in death as well as in life.

    'An Anti-Democratic Habit of Feeling': Nationalism and the Rhetoric of Toryism in O'Sullivan's Democratic Review 2006

  • Smith is called a misanthrope, but maybe he's more a cynic and a secret melancholic.

    The Fall online - latest Fall News 2007

  • The misanthrope was the supreme failure of life because he had not the intelligence to realize, or could not reconcile himself to, the incomplete condition of human nature.

    Rezánov 1906

  • Let us also pass over his sojourn at Newstead, when his sociability and gayety appear even to have been too noisy; and let us arrive at that period of his life when he began to be called a misanthrope, because he gave himself that appellation, because real sorrows had cast a shade over his life, and because, wishing to devote himself to graver things, his object was to withdraw from the society of gay, noisy companions, and then to mature his mind in distant travel.

    Lord Byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie. English Teresa Guiccioli 1836

  • Wilson, having advertised himself as a "misanthrope" receives a call from Vivian a mixed-up aspiring actress chick who's looking for an escape from a broken relationship and later, we learn another secret, (I don't want to divulge it in case you see the movie once it's distributed).

    Tobi Elkin: New Year's Eve (It Still Sucks): In Search of a Midnight Kiss 2008

  • Alcee Hastings sounds like just the kind of misanthrope the Democrats would support ..

    Sound Politics: Where Do Local Democrats Stand on Alcee Hastings? 2006

  • Alcee Hastings sounds like just the kind of misanthrope the Democrats would support ..

    Sound Politics: Where Do Local Democrats Stand on Alcee Hastings? 2006

  • Since you'd rather note the weaker secondary meaning of the word, "misanthrope," I'll take that as an agreement.

    "That's what happens when you interrupt the white man!" Ann Althouse 2006

  • In the space of ten minutes in last week's episode, Whitford's Danny physically assaulted one of his employees and then publicly reprimanded an actress for being kissed by a man, and while there's obviously a story to be told about the kind of misanthrope who is only fully human around his creative partner, that's not the story the show seems to be telling.

    Archive 2006-10-01 Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • In the space of ten minutes in last week's episode, Whitford's Danny physically assaulted one of his employees and then publicly reprimanded an actress for being kissed by a man, and while there's obviously a story to be told about the kind of misanthrope who is only fully human around his creative partner, that's not the story the show seems to be telling.

    Look, Up on the Airwaves Abigail Nussbaum 2006

Comments

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  • Amusingly, I just added this word in Japanese right as someone else added it to a list: 人間嫌�?�

    November 6, 2009

  • Was it here or at some other site (or, perhaps, in an actual book) that I discovered, then lost, a word similar to "misanthrope" that also ends in "anthrope?" Help!

    September 24, 2011

  • Try synanthrope, lycanthrope, pithecanthrope, exanthrope, therianthrope.

    September 25, 2011

  • Is joker from Batman a Misanthrope ?

    August 10, 2012

  • ednatown..i think you would have come across philanthrope which mean altruistic..loving man kind.

    July 21, 2013