How to Use disdainful in a Sentence

disdainful

adjective
  • He looked at the waiter with a disdainful glare.
  • My mother whips her head around and casts me a disdainful look.
    Yuxi Lin, Longreads, 16 June 2022
  • My mother whips her head around and casts me a disdainful look.
    Yuxi Lin, Longreads, 16 June 2022
  • Alfaro is going to strike out a ton and is disdainful of walks.
    Peter Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 21 Jan. 2023
  • At the next table, a couple, their arms cross, cast disdainful looks.
    Brienne Walsh, Forbes, 27 Oct. 2021
  • From above, the figurines almost appear to be grinning, but the face looks disdainful when viewed head-on.
    Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 6 Mar. 2025
  • Kavanaugh, at least in his public writings, is disdainful of an activist court.
    Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, 11 July 2018
  • Twitter is advancing this position so that a disdainful hypocrite will be forced to buy it.
    Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 13 July 2022
  • At the time, 95% of the folks working at our theater were either perplexed or disdainful of this project.
    Kelly Leonard, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • That doesn’t mean Katz is disdainful of the live theater experience.
    Jessica Gelt, latimes.com, 9 July 2018
  • The hard pass is especially effective when paired with a refusal to look up from your phone or a disdainful loogie hock.
    Evan Waite, The New Yorker, 10 Apr. 2024
  • Is there any living actor better at the disdainful eye roll than Michelle Pfeiffer?
    Lindsey Bahr, Star Tribune, 30 Mar. 2021
  • Such talk likely would have scandalized Mugabe, who was openly disdainful of the drug.
    Washington Post, 6 May 2018
  • There is no doubt that the president has had a cavalier and disdainful attitude toward masks.
    The Editors, National Review, 5 Oct. 2020
  • His whole behavior toward women is so disdainful.
    David Remnick, New Yorker, 17 June 2026
  • The kinds of Americans who have been on the receiving end of the president’s most harsh, disdainful rhetoric.
    Jamelle Bouie, Slate Magazine, 25 Sep. 2017
  • Still, Gorsuch’s lack of a mask inside the courtroom seemed needlessly risky and disdainful of his colleagues.
    New York Times, 14 Jan. 2022
  • Rumor has it that Lily, a somewhat older Coton de Tulear, is a touch disdainful of the new monarch.
    Doug MacCash, NOLA.com, 22 Jan. 2018
  • He could not be seen, just as the little black boy was not seen, or was seen inaccurately, by the unperceptive and disdainful white boy.
    Louise Glück, The New York Review of Books, 5 Jan. 2021
  • The stereotypes about us were, and continue to be, disdainful and dismissive, mixed with a potent disgust for good measure.
    Bobi Conn, TIME, 23 May 2024
  • The man who was often disdainful and condescending to the media even briefly hosted his own TV talk show.
    Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Feb. 2023
  • His disdainful critique emphasized how Biden, just like Putin, cannot afford to lose the test of wills that will play out in the tense days to come.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 21 Jan. 2022
  • The Germans were pragmatic, and the British were measured, and the French were disdainful.
    Fox News, 3 June 2018
  • Others, indifferent to the future or disdainful of the past, become unwise risk-takers or jerks.
    Paul Bloo, The New Yorker, 9 July 2021
  • Another is that, in his quest to govern from on high, Mr Macron tends to come across as disdainful, and out of touch with ordinary folk.
    The Economist, 14 Apr. 2018
  • Many people in the world are disdainful of American power and influence.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 30 June 2023
  • Lingering at the edge of the group was Suzie, a petite woman with wild, white-blond hair as well as the spry yet disdainful affect of an inner-city nun.
    Kent Russell, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025
  • The Falcons were equally disdainful of Ridder with Monday night’s game plan.
    Vic Tafur, The Athletic, 17 Dec. 2024
  • His second just before the gong was preceded by a disdainful hand off in the face of Wales' scrumhalf Tomos Williams.
    Daniel Gallan, CNN, 1 Nov. 2019
  • On the way, there is a trip to a concert with an uptight aunt who is disgusted by the spectacle of a woman singing and disdainful of music in general.
    A. O. Scott, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2017

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

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