What's the difference between condescension and disdain?

Condescension


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of condescending; voluntary descent from one's rank or dignity in intercourse with an inferior; courtesy toward inferiors.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the effects of Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect on evoking upset in spouses through condescension (e.g., treating spouse as stupid or inferior), possessiveness (demanding too much time and attention), abuse (slapping spouse), unfaithfulness (having sex with others), inconsiderateness (leaving toilet seat up), moodiness (crying a lot), alcohol abuse (drinking too much alcohol), emotional constriction (hiding emotions to act tough), and self-centeredness (acting selfishly).
  • (2) The debate highlighted almost all of Obama's worst qualities: he seemed bored to the point of condescension, particular to the point of testiness, and proved for the hundredth or so time that he is Worst.
  • (3) They are Americans, and they deserve your respect.” The chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Reince Priebus, echoed Pence in a statement, saying: “The truly deplorable thing in this race is the shameful level of condescension and disrespect Hillary Clinton is showing to her fellow citizens.” Trump, per his habit, initially responded on Twitter .
  • (4) But so far, I perceive a threatening mix of arrogance, self-infatuation and condescension.” It is tempting to see Podemos as a well-planned operation by a group of talented academics, following a populist script written by a line of radical thinkers, but that would be too simple.
  • (5) Not just because of her sheer endurance i n a nearly 11-hour filibuster, not just because she stood up to condescension and sexism, and not just because she did it all with aplomb and grace.
  • (6) In both cases it comes with great lashes of condescension and a lack of knowledge about the countries one is imposing on.
  • (7) For every cockle-warming group hug, there's Tambor, spewing bile and condescension; for every small child bursting winsomely into song, there he is again, a snout-nosed vision of pompous self-delusion.
  • (8) The condescension is reminiscent of the musings of Ignatius J Reilly, the hapless protagonist of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, regarding African Americans apparent conservatism.
  • (9) It is suffused with a defiant positivity that shatters any notion of condescension towards disabled competitors.
  • (10) For much of a career spanning more than 60 years, the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard , who has died aged 90, suffered a certain condescension from literary editors as a writer of "women's novels".
  • (11) A mournful waltz written from the perspective of a bereaved mother, it’s an anti-war pop song that successfully treads the line between compassion and condescension.
  • (12) Russia supports Assad not primarily as a political friend and ally – the chill and condescension in Putin’s demeanour during Assad’s flying visit to Moscow last October should have given the lie to that – but because, in the view of Putin and his advisers, Assad is all that stands between Syria and chaos.
  • (13) He was much later described by his housemaster with wonderful condescension as "a model boy, though quite undistinguished".
  • (14) His condescension is metered, however; the softer the voice and the more words delivered per minute, the greater his levels of scorn.
  • (15) In addition to standard college newspaper fare – an essay about town-gown relations in which Miller details the “ condescension ” inherent in giving a janitor a birthday card – Miller’s 25 columns, written between September 2005 and April 2007, frequently touch on hot-button issues.
  • (16) His review is so much fun, it's worth quoting more: "V For Vendetta is such an odd mixture: partly naive post-punk posturing, betraying the original's 1981 origins, and partly well-meant (but very American) condescension towards London and Britain.
  • (17) Americans don't have passports, we don't meet many foreigners, and we think proper English diction is an indicator of condescension or homosexuality.
  • (18) Yet, to judge by his recent rant in the Daily Mail against "Marxist" professors, his head-butting with the unions and his condescension on Question Time to the shadow attorney general, he clearly revels in letting off fusillades against anyone who disagrees with him on education.
  • (19) I tell him that I always associated those protests, indeed that time, with political failure, remembering above all the muddle, the lack of a programme, the big, angry “no” to globalisation giving way to a surrendered, “Well, ok then, so long as you promise that corporate capture won’t kill anybody (that I know).” Iglesias disagrees entirely, which is unlike him – his preferred conversational mode is to respond to every question with “exactly” or “absolutely”, a sort of emollient, un-left-ish manner with maybe the faintest whiff of condescension.
  • (20) Just as storied designated players swiftly find that when the initial burst of selfies and ad campaigns runs out, they’re only as good as their performances for their new teams, coaches can expect to be scrutinized for any whiff of condescension to their new environment, and held to a particularly high standard accordingly.

Disdain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) A feeling of contempt and aversion; the regarding anything as unworthy of or beneath one; scorn.
  • (v. t.) That which is worthy to be disdained or regarded with contempt and aversion.
  • (v. t.) The state of being despised; shame.
  • (v. t.) To think unworthy; to deem unsuitable or unbecoming; as, to disdain to do a mean act.
  • (v. t.) To reject as unworthy of one's self, or as not deserving one's notice; to look with scorn upon; to scorn, as base acts, character, etc.
  • (v. i.) To be filled with scorn; to feel contemptuous anger; to be haughty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) People praying, voicing their views and heart, were met with disdain and a level of force exceeding what was needed.
  • (2) Fred had to be substituted to shield him from the crowd’s disdain.
  • (3) It may have been like punk never ‘appened, but you caught a whiff of the movement’s scorched earth puritanism in the mocking disdain with which Smash Hits addressed rock-star hedonism.
  • (4) TV's Jeremy Paxman didn't even bother hiding his disdain for the introduction of weather reports to Newsnight – "It's April.
  • (5) It shows that we still have some way to go to end bigoted banter.” The exchange was also met with disdain on Twitter.
  • (6) He has frequently tested the patience of Japan's conservative sumo authorities with his disdain for the rules of engagement in the ring and his bad behaviour off it.
  • (7) His comic adventures are too many to relate, but it may be said that they culminate in a café of 'singing waiters' where, after a wealth of comic 'business' with the tray, he shows his disdain for articulate speech by singing a vividly explicit song in gibberish.
  • (8) Immigration has been used as a 21st-century incomes policy, mixing a liberal sense of free for all with a free-market disdain for clear and effective rules.
  • (9) Riva, the oldest nominee ever for best actress category, has a very Gallic disdain for such public adulation.
  • (10) "Historians will pore over his many speeches to black audiences," wrote Ta-Nahisi Coates at The Atlantic, and "they will see a president who sought to hold black people accountable for their communities, but was disdainful of those who looked at him and sought the same".
  • (11) Born in July 1954, Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne (his surname until he went to Oxford) has always been something of a Marmite politician, attracting both loyalty and affection, as well as brickbats and disdain.
  • (12) Gil Eliyahu, who stopped working for Binyamin and Sara Netanyahu two and a half years ago, is threatening to sue the couple, claiming he was treated with "humiliating" disdain.
  • (13) It was one of at least half a dozen such unionist experiments, with a variety of partners, which foundered on the rocks of the would-be partners' infirmity of purpose, fear, suspicion and disdain of this bizarre, arrogant, impetuous upstart.
  • (14) Safronkov reserved his fiercest disdain for the UK envoy, Matthew Rycroft, who had said that UK scientists had determined that sarin had been used in the Khan Sheikhun attack and called on Russia to cut ties with Assad, who Rycroft said was bringing Moscow only “shame and humiliation”.
  • (15) The rules extended from healthcare to the environment to workplace safety, but all were grounded in Bush's disdain for the government's role as a regulatory authority.
  • (16) Stevenson did not disdain the genre in which he was operating.
  • (17) Issues Sir Ken, on the other hand, is a professional Yorkshireman and farmer - the sort of chap who prefers to call a retail outlet a shop and treated press and City with equal disdain.
  • (18) The pent-up fury of the parents reflected the intensity of the violent protests that marked a dramatic week in Mexico, which has deepened the political crisis facing President Enrique Peña Nieto as he returns from a week-long trip to China and Australia, seen by many as a sign of disdain for the suffering and anger at home.
  • (19) What is clear now, for those for whom it was ever in doubt, is the reality of Tory values: the disdain with which they view the less fortunate and the reason why the annual cull of the impoverished through malnutrition and hypothermia is not a problem to them.
  • (20) Instead – spoiler alert – to the disdain of many, it opted for a more satisfying, upbeat conclusion.