spurn
/spɝn/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.36 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn.
Example Sentences
- "to spurn at your most royal image"
- "What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn."
- "Domestics will pay a more ready and cheerful service, when they find themselves not spurned, because fortune has laid them below the level of others, at their master's feet."
- "She will spurn a Tyrone Power/A Van Johnson or a Gable/For a Cenek Kottnauer/Or a man like Dr. Treybal"
- "Although the term “rewilding” – meaning an approach to conservation that allows nature a free rein – has been in currency since 1990, many traditional landowners and gamekeepers continue to spurn both the term and the idea behind it."
- "Me thinks I ſee kings kneeling at his feet, And he with frowning browes and fiery lookes, Spurning their crownes from off their captiue heads."
Etymology
From Middle English spurnen, spornen, from Old English spurnan (“to strike against, kick, spurn, reject; stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *spurnaną (“to tread, kick, knock out”), from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognate with Scots spurn (“to strike, push, kick”), German spornen (“to spur on”), Icelandic sporna, spyrna (“to kick”), Latin spernō (“despise, distain, scorn”). Related to spur and spread.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *sperH-, spurnen, spurnan, *spurnaną
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /spɝn/
- British English: /spɜːn/