desdeñar

Inherited from Latin dedignāre. Cognates with English disdain, and French dédaigner. Though it is a cognate with the French word, the French dictionary lists dédaigner as coming from Old French desdeignier, from Vulgar Latin *dignāre, from Latin dīgnārī (whence Spanish dignar (“to deign”)).

• IPA^(key): /desdeˈɲaɾ/
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: des‧de‧ñar

desdeñar (first-person singular present desdeño, first-person singular preterite desdeñé, past participle desdeñado)

1. (transitive) to disdain, scorn, despise
   • 1854, Nicolás Maquiavelo, El Príncipe:

     En otros tiempos, los principes desdeñaban las alianzas, prefiriendo vender sus soldados a la parte mas jenerosa, y traficando vilmente con la sangre de sus súbditos.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “desdeñar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28