disparagingly

English

Etymology

From disparaging +‎ -ly.

Adverb

disparagingly (comparative more disparagingly, superlative most disparagingly)

1. Insultingly

   The candidate spoke of his opponent disparagingly.

   • 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 91:

     Sadie wrestled with the door's defective lock, saying disparagingly, "You seem to be making the running with doctors these days. Where did you pick up that one?"

   • 2004 May 18, Robin Tolmach Lakoff, “ESSAY; From Ancient Greece to Iraq, the Power of Words in Wartime”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     During the American Revolution, the British called the colonists "Yankees," a term with a history that is still in dispute. While the British intended it disparagingly, the Americans, in perhaps the first historical instance of reclamation, made the word their own and gave it a positive spin, turning the derisive song "Yankee Doodle" into our first, if unofficial, national anthem.

Synonyms

• degradingly
• insultingly