deride

See also: déride and déridé

English

WOTD – 19 April 2025

Etymology

PIE word
*de

Learned borrowing from Latin dērīdēre, the present active infinitive of dērīdeō (to laugh at, make fun of, mock, deride), from dē- (prefix denoting putting down or subjecting to indignity)[1] + rīdeō (to laugh; to laugh at, mock, ridicule) (further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (to rotate; to turn) (referring to turning the mouth to smile) or *wreyd- (to carve; to scratch)).[2]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /dɪˈɹaɪd/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /dəˈɹaɪd/, /di-/
  • Rhymes: -aɪd
  • Hyphenation: de‧ride

Verb

deride (third-person singular simple present derides, present participle deriding, simple past and past participle derided)

  1. (transitive) To laugh at or mock (someone or something) harshly; to ridicule, to scorn.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:ridicule
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To laugh in a harshly mocking manner.
    • 1663 (date written), Anthony Wood, “166⅔ and 1663: 15 Car[olus] II: <Wood aet[atis] 31>”, in Andrew Clark, editor, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632–1695, Described by Himself [] (Oxford Historical Society series; XIX), volume I (1632–1663), Oxford, Oxfordshire: [] [Horace Hart] for the Oxford Historical Society at the Clarendon Press, published 1891, →OCLC, page 466:
      Memorandum that about the year 1650 coffee and chocolate began to be frequently drunk in Oxon: and about 1655 a club was erected at Tilliard's where many pretended witts would meet and deride at others.

Conjugation

Conjugation of deride
infinitive (to) deride
present tense past tense
1st-person singular deride derided
2nd-person singular deride, deridest derided, deridedst
3rd-person singular derides, derideth derided
plural deride
subjunctive deride derided
imperative deride
participles deriding derided

Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ Compare de-”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; de-, pref.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ deride, v.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2025; deride, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

Italian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /deˈri.de/
  • Rhymes: -ide
  • Hyphenation: de‧rì‧de

Verb

deride

  1. third-person singular present indicative of deridere

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

dērīdē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of dērīdeō

Turkish

Noun

deride

  1. locative singular of deri