discountenance

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English

Etymology

From Middle French descontenancer (compare French décontenancer).

Pronunciation

Verb

discountenance (third-person singular simple present discountenances, present participle discountenancing, simple past and past participle discountenanced)

  1. (transitive) To have an unfavorable opinion of; to deprecate or disapprove of.
    • 1855, George Bancroft, chapter XXX, in History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume V, London: Routledge, page 74:
      A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot.
    • 1908, Edward Carpenter, chapter 4, in The Intermediate Sex, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1921, page 90:
      So far from friendship being an institution whose value is recognised and understood, it is at best scantily acknowledged, and is often actually discountenanced and misunderstood.
    • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days:
      Mr Macgregor stiffened at the word 'nigger', which is discountenanced in India.
    • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 2:
      'Mrs' was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party—you were supposed to call everyone 'comrade'—but with some women one used it instinctively.
  2. (transitive) To abash, embarrass or disconcert.
  3. (transitive) To refuse countenance or support to; to discourage.
    • 1948 January and February, “British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 1:
      These were rejected by Parliament, which discountenanced the amalgamation of competing lines but gave broad approval in theory to end-on amalgamations.

Derived terms

Noun

discountenance (uncountable)

  1. Cold treatment; disapprobation.
    • 1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter VII, in Duty and Inclination: , volume II, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 92:
      Highly tenacious of preserving over the mind of Sir Aubrey an undisputed sway, Lady De Brooke had seen with great reluctance the ascendency his grand-daughters were acquiring, which she artfully hoped to repress by throwing discountenance on the visits of their father, []