How to Use disdain in a Sentence

disdain

1 of 2 noun
  • I have a healthy disdain for companies that mistreat their workers.
  • He regarded their proposal with disdain.
  • Redd’s strike is the latest sign of disdain.
    — Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, 27 Dec. 2025
  • The ones rooted in disdain don’t hold.
    — Joel Lorenzi, New York Times, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Her disdain is crystal-clear—even when it's buried in synths.
    — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 Nov. 2018
  • Nobody should watch this or care other than to show disdain.
    — Greg Cote may 10, Miami Herald, 10 May 2026
  • His version of disdain is her idea of a fortune.
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The fact the question is no longer being met with disdain is progress.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2022
  • Rust penned his disdain for this year's budget wrangling in a blog post.
    — Chris Mayhew, Cincinnati.com, 13 Apr. 2018
  • In our house, there was great disdain for wealth and arrogance.
    — Marc Myers, WSJ, 6 Oct. 2020
  • At this point, the widespread disdain shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
    — Victor Tangermann, Futurism, 2 July 2026
  • And the disdain for and ridicule of Utah from around the country lives on, too.
    — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Oh, the disdain on Newsom’s face.
    — Maya Singer, Vogue, 1 Feb. 2026
  • Few items of clothing have been talked about over the last two decades with more disdain than the low-rise jean.
    — Eliza Huber, refinery29.com, 10 Sep. 2021
  • The French rider waved his left arm in disdain and swerved back and forth across the road.
    — orlandosentinel.com, 26 July 2019
  • His first target of hatred and disdain?
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 5 Apr. 2026
  • The voice in press conferences is not an act of disdain for the media.
    — The Enquirer, 7 Apr. 2022
  • But the best Krakauer also has a touch of disdain for the subject.
    — Joseph Bien-Kahn, Outside Online, 30 Mar. 2018
  • Putin still largely refuses to say his name, in a show of disdain.
    — Mary Ilyushina, Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2024
  • The man who pulled him down is hovering nearby, a look of disdain on his face.
    — New York Times, 21 Sep. 2021
  • His disdain for the cold eliminates a lot of those cities anyway.
    — Jeff Wilson, star-telegram, 8 June 2018
  • Musk has publicly expressed his disdain for copyright law in the past.
    — Rachel Shin, Fortune, 15 June 2023
  • The populist idea is disdain for restraint, even at the expense of virtue.
    — Bret Stephens New York Times, Star Tribune, 18 Aug. 2020
  • And one of them, Sarandos, has shown flashes of disdain for it.
    — Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 12 Dec. 2025
  • To some, Musk’s apparent disdain for the city feels like salt in the wound.
    — Trisha Thadani, Washington Post, 26 July 2023
  • The far right and the far left now share the contempt and disdain for any thinking other than their own.
    — Joyce Kamanitz, Hartford Courant, 25 June 2026
  • Like many of Reed's columns over the years, his post on Hall was met with disdain.
    — Hayes Gardner, The Courier-Journal, 5 Feb. 2022
  • The son of the rock legend took to Twitter to express his disdain.
    — Marisa Whitaker, SPIN, 2 June 2022
  • But the look of disdain on the face of that woman was colder than the blasting winter wind.
    — Judith Martin, Dallas Morning News, 3 Jan. 2026
  • The disdain is all gone, and in its place is a kind of honoring that verges on reverence.
    — Daphne Merkin, The New Republic, 11 Aug. 2023

disdain

2 of 2 verb
  • They disdained him for being weak.
  • She disdained to answer their questions.
  • While most birds peck at food right side up, the nuthatch disdains proper manners.
    — Jerry Shnay, Daily Southtown, 11 June 2018
  • Trump is often mocked as someone who likes to return to his own bed at night, who disdains long trips abroad.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 11 May 2018
  • The Bible, in its reader-unfriendly way, disdains to tell us.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2014
  • Entirely self-made, Edison disdained those who fell on hard times.
    — David Oshinsky, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2019
  • White supremacy, which is very much alive in the land — turn on the news — disdains every people of color.
    — Robert Lloyd, Twin Cities, 7 Feb. 2026
  • White supremacy, which is very much alive in the land — turn on the news — disdains every people of color.
    — Robert Lloyd, Houston Chronicle, 4 Feb. 2026
  • White supremacy, which is very much alive in the land — turn on the news — disdains every people of color.
    — Television Critic, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026
  • Schemes were hatched in the repulsive latrines, where guards disdained to enter.
    — New York Times, 21 Sep. 2019
  • Trump and Bolton both appear to disdain alliances and many forms of diplomacy.
    — Elizabeth Saunders, Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Adlon disdains cutesiness and avoids almost all of the genre’s familiar clichés.
    — Willa Paskin, Slate Magazine, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Lugo, who is also 6-4 but with short hair, disdains Gsellman’s long locks.
    — James Wagner, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2016
  • The cards served the dual purpose of helping young pupils learn their letters — and disdain religion.
    — Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 19 July 2022
  • There are all shades of comments, from effusive praise to disdain and, of course, some garden variety trolling.
    — Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, 6 Aug. 2020
  • Gunmakers were no longer avoiding the gun that many had once regarded as the kind of weapon that society would disdain.
    — Todd C. Frankel, Shawn Boburg, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Alex Horton, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Mar. 2023
  • For botanist and writer Sandra Knapp, the approach was closer to disdain.
    — Dominique Browning, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2022
  • To this day, ambition is often celebrated in a man and disdained in a woman.
    — Tory Burch, Time, 22 Sep. 2017
  • The everyday life of the soul, the things that the big picture of history usually omits, or disdains.
    — Rachel Donadio, New York Times, 20 May 2016
  • In the long run, there’s less safety for everyone when the public and the police distrust and disdain each other.
    — Caille Millner, SFChronicle.com, 24 Jan. 2020
  • The titles leave little doubt about how much disdain the authors have for the schools meant to prepare future leaders in business.
    — George Siedel, The Conversation, 27 June 2022
  • In my grandparents’ neighborhood, girls wear wigs and long black skirts, but Nagyi disdains them for their showiness.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Please do not read this in any way to disdain the people commemorating the loss of Pearl Grover.
    — cleveland, 26 Feb. 2022
  • Some writers disdain the culture of the Internet; King is very much a product of it.
    — Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2021
  • But seldom have critics so thoroughly disdained the events in Philadelphia as to call for a do-over.
    — Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 13 Mar. 2017
  • In recent years, Charlemagne had largely disdained politics and gone back to music.
    — Glenn Garvin, miamiherald, 10 Dec. 2017
  • Most of the characters in the book simply disdain other people, period.
    — Jess Bergman, The New Republic, 22 June 2022
  • Neither have some conservatives disdained to use of the power or authority of the state to censor free speech.
    — Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 26 Sep. 2017
  • The key thing about these scams is that in both cases the snobby cultural elites who Trump professes to disdain didn’t lose anything.
    — Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 18 Oct. 2018
  • There have been many other Ganny letters over the years, full of love, sometimes disdain, and always protective to the core.
    — Southern Living, 24 Oct. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'disdain.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: