Definitions

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

  • adjective not showing courteous respect

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Modern forms of "consensus" history see Madison and Hamilton alike as being superseded by Jackson, who ushered in a rowdy, undeferential, dirty-boots, small-business capitalism, contrasted with the gentility shared by all of the famous founders, no matter their differences.

    William Hogeland: Economic Conflicts of the Founding Era Dispel Tea Party Myths... and Liberal Ones, Too William Hogeland 2011

  • And, like Andrew Jackson before her, Palin is unapologetic, undeferential, and unabashedly proud to be an American.

    William Astore: Pallin' Around With Palin 2009

  • From a place in which everyone knew his place, it has become one of the most delightfully undeferential places on earth.

    Why The Monarchy Must Go 2008

  • Britain and the U.S. are the most messy, undeferential, schlocky societies on earth, places that like making a fast buck, that enjoy celebrity precisely because it is fleeting.

    Gordon Brown, Charlie Whelan and Me 2007

  • Britain and the U.S. are the most messy, undeferential, schlocky societies on earth, places that like making a fast buck, that enjoy celebrity precisely because it is fleeting.

    The ties that bind 2007

  • PHILLIPS: The British press has a deserved reputation for being extremely bloody minded, taking no prisoners, being, I think, by the standards of many continental countries in Europe and by the standards of many American newspapers, extremely rude, extremely impolite, extremely direct, and extremely undeferential to authority, which I happen to think are our particular democratic strengths.

    CNN Transcript May 14, 2005 2005

  • She praises the groups who took part in the antinuclear protests at Greenham Common, helped to halt roadbuilding projects through ancient forests, and challenged English laws against New Age travelers — laws which she sees as designed to keep "the undeserving and undeferential poor" in the cities, leaving the countryside as a refuge for the upper and middle classes.

    Bothered and Bewildered Lurie, Alison 1997

  • Perhaps he had an animus against these bumptious, undeferential, overcritical Americans, and thought it was time to give one of them

    In the Claws of the German Eagle Albert Rhys Williams 1922

  • With punk, for the first time, French groups were in the thick of things from the get-go, undeferential and deeply committed to the cause.

    BBC News - Home 2011

  • The King's Speech has the double whammy of not just the predicament - a desperately shy, unconfident man having to take on a terrifying public role - but the development of a "real" and "equal" relationship with an insistently undeferential commoner.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

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