belittle
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From be- + little. Coined by Thomas Jefferson in 1782[1]
PronunciationEdit
VerbEdit
belittle (third-person singular simple present belittles, present participle belittling, simple past and past participle belittled)
- (transitive) To knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is, especially as a way of showing contempt or deprecation. [from 1782]
- Synonyms: understate, make light of, denigrate, degrade, deprecate, disparage, downplay, play down, trivialize, bagatellize
- Antonym: exaggerate
- 2006, Mark Steyn, chapter 9, in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, →ISBN, page 201:
- Under the rules as understood by the New York Times, the West is free to mock and belittle its Judeo-Christian inheritance, and, likewise, the Muslim world is free to mock and belittle the West's Judeo-Christian inheritance.
- Don't belittle your colleagues.
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
to knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ^ .Thomas Jefferson, “Productions, mineral, vegetable and animal”, in Notes on the State of Virginia (in English), 1802, page 90: “So far the Count de Buffon has carried this new theory of the tendency of nature to belittle her productions on this ſide of the Atlantic.”