Crossword clues for belittle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Belittle \Be*lit"tle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Belittled; p. pr. &
vb. n. Belittling.]
To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a
depreciatory or contemptuous way.
--T. Jefferson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1781, "to make small," from be- + little (v.); first recorded in writings of Thomas Jefferson (and probably coined by him), who was roundly execrated for it in England: Belittle! What an expression! It may be an elegant one in Virginia, and even perfectly intelligible; but for our part, all we can do is to guess at its meaning. For shame, Mr. Jefferson! ["European Magazine and London Review," 1787, reporting on "Notes on the State of Virginia"; to guess was considered another barbarous Yankeeism.]Jefferson used it to characterize Buffon's view that American life was stunted by nature, which he was refuting. The figurative sense of "depreciate, scorn as worthless" (as the reviewers did to this word) is from 1797. Related: Belittled; belittling.
Wiktionary
vb. To knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is.
WordNet
Usage examples of "belittle".
I tried to belittle the situation a few minutes ago, merely because I wanted to see how strongly you had been impressed by what Grace Bartram had told you.
Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive its character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its purpose.
Not to belittle the two hundred or so people on Selva, but billions of lives are at stake in the Aretian system.
Liberals belittled every bust of a terrorist cell as an overhyped publicity stunt from that cornpone Ashcroft.
The great belittle, or exalt the small, Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall The slaves of tyranny or ignorance?
The fact that neither Alfred Sartain, nor Hunnefield, the secretary, had been slain in the penthouse broil, made him belittle the detectives.
Peter, quite untruthfully, but anxious not to seem to belittle the local tragedy.
The Am-ha-aretz, whose memories include nothing but their own failures, tell them their suffering belittles them, tell them that, my yetzer hara, tell the ones who trade only in false coin where they can buy clothes to wear when they are alone.
There is no doctrine so belittling, so withering to our national life, as that which conceives our destiny to be a life of exclusion of the affairs and interests of the whole globe, hemmed in to the selfish development of our material wealth and strength, surrounded by a Chinese wall built of strata of prejudice on the outside and of ignorance on the inside.
While one side belittled him as a creature of the Hamiltonians, the other scorned him as a friend of Elbridge Gerry.
These indiscretions which you belittle appear to have been enough to have estranged him from his father, a circumstance which but served the more to endear him to his mother.
Some might think it churlish for a trooper to belittle a posting to so beautiful a world, and indeed, Pyrassis boasted an amenable climate and pleasant surroundings.
In almost daily attacks in the Aurora, Adams was belittled as “The President by Three Votes,” mocked again as “His Rotundity,” excoriated as a base hypocrite, a tool of the British, “a man divested of his senses.
It belittled the woman and her lawyer, which fit in with the picture Carmen had painted of the judge.
Her memory for names was not good, but she did remember being belittled.