Library / English Dictionary

DETEST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Dislike intensely; feel antipathy or aversion towards

Example:

She detests politicians

Synonyms:

detest; hate

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "detest" is one way to...):

dislike (have or feel a dislike or distaste for)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "detest"):

abhor; abominate; execrate; loathe (find repugnant)

contemn; despise; disdain; scorn (look down on with disdain)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot detest Sue

Sam and Sue detest the movie

Derivation:

detestation (hate coupled with disgust)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It makes one detest all one's acquaintance.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Not alone did it give him the same dark and murky aspect of the Silva house, inside and out, but it seemed to emphasize that animal-like strength of his which she detested.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I quite detest her.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and after relating the circumstances, she thus went on: I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“How I detest them.”

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I detest her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So we are to countenance things and people which we detest, merely because we are not belles and millionaires, are we?

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

No one made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility, exclaimed, Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse ME—you know I detest cards.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)