Sample sentences for SUPERCILIOUS

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Definition

arrogant (acting as if better, more important, and superior in ideas than others)

I have come to hate her supercilious smile.

supercilious = arrogant

Her mother eyed my clothes with a supercilious air.

supercilious = arrogant

She liked me better from that time on, and she never took a supercilious air with me again.
Willa Cather -- My Antonia

supercilious = arrogant

Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby

supercilious = arrogant

While I spoke in supercilious accents, and looked at the room as if I had an oil well in my own backyard, my...
Maya Angelou -- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

supercilious = self-important

He said it as naturally as Inspector Crome might have said it-but without the superciliousness.
Agatha Christie -- The ABC Murders

superciliousness = arrogant (acting as if better, more important, and superior in ideas than others)

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

Gwendolen. [Superciliously.] No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more.
Oscar Wilde -- The Importance of Being Earnest

superciliously = arrogant disdain of those one views as unworthy

Don't be supercilious with your mother!
Tennessee Williams -- The Glass Menagerie

supercilious = arrogant

...there is a disturbing, vaguely supercilious smile set into long, narrow lips.
Jhumpa Lahiri -- The Namesake

supercilious = arrogant

She was not a supercilious or an over-dainty woman.
Kate Chopin -- The Awakening

supercilious = arrogant

'Enough, enough!' said Fudge, with a very supercilious look on his face.
J.K. Rowling -- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

supercilious = arrogant (as though other opinions didn't matter)

There it was again, that mysterious smile, sad and supercilious at the same time.
Cornelia Funke -- Inkheart

supercilious = showing disdain of those one views as unworthy

At last at twenty-six she found herself penned into marriage with a supercilious and ruined nobleman and the Cathedral of Lima fairly buzzed with the sneers of her guests.
Thornton Wilder -- The Bridge of San Luis Rey

supercilious = arrogant

"You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows..."
"Yes, well," Jace said, with a supercilious look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It's required."
Cassandra Clare -- City of Bones

supercilious = acting as if superior to others

And even though we heard what they thought of the deacon at St. Peter's (a "supercilious moron"), what they thought of the neighbors ("He's courting a heart attack with all that fat"), what they thought of one sister when the other sister was up in her room—we were not meant to repeat it.
Alice Sebold -- Lucky

supercilious = arrogant

The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby

supercilious = arrogant

There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant to be supercilious, and he had succeeded.
Forster, E. M. -- A Room With A View
"But how very good of you to have come", he replied superciliously; for had I not told him that I hated dancing ?
Virginia Woolf -- A Sketch of the Past
While I looked at Thomas Stone and sat next to the supercilious Constance, a slow fuse burned inside me and it was about to ignite.
Abraham Verghese -- Cutting for Stone
"To be sure, to be sure," Hans Castorp replied superciliously.
Thomas Mann -- The Magic Mountain

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