All 50 Uses of
contempt
in
Anna Karenina
- Hearing her husband's steps, she stopped, looking towards the door, and trying assiduously to give her features a severe and contemptuous expression.†
Part 1contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- She laughed contemptuously and took up her book again; but now she was definitely unable to follow what she read.†
Part 1contemptuously = with disrespect
- Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "he wants to get the benefit of my fortune."†
Part 1
- Levin smiled contemptuously.†
Part 2
- What kind of bird may it be, pray?" added Ryabinin, looking contemptuously at the snipe: "a great delicacy, I suppose."†
Part 2
- "Quite so, where you please," said Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about anything.†
Part 2contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game were worth the candle.†
Part 2contemptuously = with disrespect
- I don't understand," said Anna contemptuously.†
Part 2
- She noticed that when questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled contemptuously, which was not in accord with Christian meekness.†
Part 2
- Getting up and walking about the room, he glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously.†
Part 3
- The prince's manner of treating the very people who, to Vronsky's surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him with Russian amusements, was contemptuous.†
Part 4contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- He was equable and not cringing with his superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals, and was contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors.†
Part 4contemptuously = with disrespect
- But for this prince he was an inferior, and his contemptuous and indulgent attitude to him revolted him.†
Part 4contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- His brow was lowering, and his eyes stared darkly before him, avoiding her eyes; his mouth was tightly and contemptuously shut.†
Part 4contemptuously = with disrespect
- At the mention of letters the lawyer pursed up his lips, and gave utterance to a thin little compassionate and contemptuous sound.†
Part 4contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled contemptuously.†
Part 4contemptuously = with disrespect
- He smiled contemptuously, and flung down the telegram.†
Part 4
- The smartly dressed and healthy-looking nurse, frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered something to herself, and covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the idea of doubts being cast on her abundance of milk.†
Part 4
- A handsome head waiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upwards, an evening coat, a broad white cambric shirt front, and a bunch of trinkets hanging above his rounded stomach, stood with his hands in the full curve of his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped him.†
Part 5
- Golenishtchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky.†
Part 5
- As a bachelor, when he had watched other people's married life, seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously in his heart.†
Part 5
- He looked at her sternly when she came in, and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been unwell.†
Part 5
- "Soldier!" said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who was coming in.†
Part 5
- "Why, upon my word, sir," the carpenter said with a contemptuous smile.†
Part 6contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- He bowed, shrugging his shoulders, and smiling contemptuously.†
Part 6contemptuously = with disrespect
- "Society!" he said contemptuously, "how could I miss society?"†
Part 6
- She smiled contemptuously.†
Part 7
- She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations.†
Part 7contemptuous = showing a lack of respect
- Only in the Northern Beetle, in a comic article on the singer Drabanti, who had lost his voice, there was a contemptuous allusion to Koznishev's book, suggesting that the book had been long ago seen through by everyone, and was a subject of general ridicule.†
Part 8
- In spite of his absolute contempt for the author, it was with complete respect that Sergey Ivanovitch set about reading the article.
Part 8 *contempt = disrespect and dislike
- She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and despised her for what she was proud of and regarded as a fine characteristic—her nervousness, her delicate contempt and indifference for everything coarse and earthly.†
Part 1
- Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for their family.†
Part 1
- He saw that this association was a mere anchor to save him from self-contempt.†
Part 1
- The doctor was meantime with difficulty restraining the expression of his contempt for this old gentleman, and with difficulty condescending to the level of his intelligence.†
Part 2
- "No, because he has treated me with contempt," said Kitty, in a breaking voice.†
Part 2
- Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!†
Part 2
- Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two officers, he went up to Vronsky.†
Part 2
- He felt that Yashvin, in spite of his apparent contempt for every sort of feeling, was the only man who could, so he fancied, comprehend the intense passion which now filled his whole life.†
Part 2
- It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently pursued her, expressed a feeling of hatred and contempt, and she tried to avoid meeting him.†
Part 2
- And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage.†
Part 3
- The complication was of this nature: Alexey Alexandrovitch's characteristic quality as a politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy.†
Part 3
- I have too much respect or contempt, or both...I respect your past and despise your present...that I was far from the interpretation you put on my words.†
Part 3
- The position of Alexey Alexandrovitch, owing to this, and partly owing to the contempt lavished on him for his wife's infidelity, became very precarious.†
Part 4
- Its meaning ran: "If it's a trick, then calm contempt and departure.†
Part 4
- He felt that he could not endure the weight of universal contempt and exasperation, which he had distinctly seen in the face of the clerk and of Korney, and of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during those two days.†
Part 5
- All these people, just like our spirit monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them the contempt of everyone.†
Part 6
- They don't care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved.†
Part 6
- They don't care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved.†
Part 6
- I don't deserve contempt.†
Part 6
- "Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, "those are the crude ideas of our monks....Yet that is nowhere said.†
Part 7
Definitions:
-
(1)
(contempt as in: feels contempt towards her) lack of respect for someone or something thought inferior -- often accompanied by a feeling of dislike or disgustA famous saying, "familiarity breeds contempt" comes from Aesop's fable, "The Fox and the Lion". (6th century BC)
When first the Fox saw the Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood. Next time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by. The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony.
The moral is traditionally, "Familiarity breeds contempt"; though an alternative moral is "Acquaintance softens prejudices." -
(2)
(contempt as in: held in contempt of court) the crime of willful disobedience to or disrespect for the authority of a court or legislative bodyFormally, this is called "contempt of court," but it is often shortened as just "contempt."